Today, I’m sharing how to make gourmet decorated shortbread cookies. Decorating cookies is a great way to express your individuality. It also reminds me that you have to treat the individual and not just the disease. It might sound like a tenuous connection, but for me, it’s very real. Every person is an individual and treatments for cancer are becoming more and more individualized and more effective. I made chocolate cheesecake pie in honor of my brother, who lost his fight with leukemia decades ago. And I make decorated shortbread cookies in honor of Lily, who is alive and thriving and (update) 5 years cancer-free! For ease of browsing, you can find all my cheesecake recipes and my cookie and bar recipes in one place.
For this post, OXO sent me a lovely box of supplies for making cut-out cookies. OXO is donating $100 to Cookies for Kids’ Cancer* for every blog post dedicated to this campaign during the month of September, including mine. Thank you OXO!
Sugar cookies tend to be firmer but lighter, and are better for cookie-cutter shapes and decorating. Shortbread is softer and more crumbly. Not great for decorating, but if you bake it in a pan deeper than the dough, add soft-set caramel and chocolate on top, you get Millionaire’s Shortbread, AKA homemade Twix.
The Folks at OXO Are Good Cookies
This fight is a personal one for the OXO family. Cancer doesn’t care who you are, or who your family is, or who they work for.
So when childhood cancer struck in the OXO family, they didn’t just sit back and hope for the best. They mobilized. They do great work year round, of course, but during September, Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, OXO is donating $.25 per sale of all their products labeled with this sticker:
This is part of OXO’s pledge to donate $100,000 to Cookies for Kids’ Cancer.
September is winding down, but I bet you there are a ton of OXO products that you could use and would love, so get out there and get to buying!
How To Pack Decorated Cookies for Shipping
After all the icing dried, I packed up my decorated shortbread cookies really well and shipped them off to Lily, where they were Very Well Received indeed!
By packing them well, I mean:
- Get a box big enough to hold a cookie tin with at least 2″ larger in all dimensions than the tin you’ll be packaging the cookies in.
- Line the bottom of the box with 2 layers of large bubble wrap.
- Line the tin with tiny bubble wrap along the bottom and around the sides. Pack the cookies in the tin as tightly as you can. On end if the tin is deep enough. Either way, you want to minimize the chance for the cookies to shift in shipping. If your cookies are very intricately decorated, you may want to place each one in an individual bubble wrap pouch before packing in the tin.
- Place the tin in your bubble wrap-lined box.
- Pack shipping peanuts or paper tightly around the tin and finish off with another layer or two of big bubble wrap.
- Make sure you stamp or write FRAGILE on every side of your box.
I am thrilled for my friend that her Lily is happy and healthy, and I don’t think that would have been possible even just ten or twenty years ago.
It’s all thanks to research funded from people and companies who care. Thank you, OXO, for being one of those companies.
Even if you don’t think you can decorate shortbread cookies or sugar cookies, I encourage you to give it a try. It was worth if for the smiles alone! And the cookies really are delicious!
Easy Cut Out Sugar Cookies | Just 5 INGREDIENTS! | No Spread Sugar Cookie Recipe
FAQ
What kind of cookies are used for decorating?
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