And just like that, it’s fall! I feel like summer just started, don’t you? The entire season just flew past me but I’m not complaining, and you know why? Because fall is my Absolute.Favorite.Season of all time! It’s when baking season shifts into overdrive and doesn’t let up until after Christmas, and it’s super theme-y. We’ve got pumpkins and ghosts, we’ve got turkeys and lattes, and you can’t escape them no matter where you go- even when you go home at the end of the day. And in that vein, today I’ve got some particularly cute and easy fall front door sugar cookies to show you!
Are you a front door decorator? I wish I was. I love admiring what people do to their homes over any holiday- flags on the fourth of July, spring flowers at Easter, and of course all the Christmas lights in the wintertime. But I think my favorite decorations to admire are the fall ones- they feel so homey and welcoming. Hay bales, scarecrows, pumpkins, and wreaths. Anyone can turn their front door into its own tiny little Harvest Festival with a few simple touches.
A fun thing about these cookies is that they are super friendly to customization- make your own front door if you like! Make your neighbor’s door as a gift! The example I’ll be working on today is a simple one that you can change up in any number of ways. To make the cookies just like you see them here, you’ll need just a few simple materials.
- Sugar cookies, baked and cooled- recipe at the bottom of this post, or find my recipe tutorial here!
- Rectangle cookie cutter- I like this set from Amazon, because it’s cheap, durable, and you get so many sizes for future projects.
- Gel food dye- available here on Amazon.
- Royal Icing- find the recipe at the bottom of this post and read my basic royal icing tutorial here
- White at flooding consistency, and white at piping consistency for details
- Brown at piping consistency
- Small amounts of red, orange, and yellow at piping consistency
- #1, #2, and #3 icing tips.
- Edible gold pearl dust (available here) and lemon extract
- A fine tipped food marker (optional but helpful)
- A counter top fan to speed drying time (optional but helpful)
Well, when a decorating opportunity like this is knocking, we gotta answer the door and say hello! (Sorry, I’m trying to make a door pun but I’m awful at it!)
Start by baking your cookies and allowing them to cool fully. Grab your white royal icing (and a #3 tip) and flood the entire cookie and allow the icing at least half an hour under the fan to harden. When you’re ready to proceed, use the other bag of white icing (piping consistency) to create two long, vertical rectangles on the top of the cookie. Then make two long, thin, horizontal lines across the bottom of the cookie to make your basic door shape. Allow another half hour or so under the fan for these details to harden.
TIP: If you have trouble making a straight line, try holding your icing tip a little farther away from your cookie surface. Hand shakes and twitches tend to smooth out when the icing line has time to ‘fall’ onto the cookie.
Now it’s time to start on the wreath. If you’re anything like me, you might think you’re making a nice, round circle or a lovely, symmetrical heart shape- and then you step back and look at what you’ve made and it’s a total mess. To help keep your shapes ‘in shape’, use a brown or black food marker to sketch the shape you want onto the cookie before moving on to icing. I like to make small dots to connect rather than full lines, because they’re easier to hide when you ice over them.
Once you have your shape drawn out, pick up your brown icing bag (piping consistency with a #1 tip) and make a line of small ‘x’ marks to create whatever shape you want your wreath to be. Give this icing about 5 minutes under the fan. When you’re ready to move on, make another layer of x shapes on top of the first layer. Try to stagger them so that everything looks knitted together like a wicker wreath would. While you wait for the wreath to fully harden, you can make your golden doorknobs and peepholes.
A word about painting cookies: If you’ve never painted a sugar cookie before, have no fear- it’s easy! Grab a small bowl or ramekin and gently tap some of the gold dust into it- you can eyeball the amount, but I usually use about 1/2 tsp of dust to begin. Add to that about 2 tsp of clear lemon extract and mix well. It will appear thin at first but this mixture evaporates quicker than you might expect. If it’s thinner than you prefer, add a touch more dust. If it gets too thick as you spend time painting, add more extract. To actually paint your cookies, dip a small, clean paintbrush into the gold paint and then lightly run it across the area you want to paint. It’s much better to do a second coat later than to over saturate the area in one go. This paint dries quickly, so a few minutes after you’re done you can decorate on top of it if you need to.
Using your white icing, make a large white dot between the vertical and horizontal rectangle panels on the right, and a small dot centered near the top of your wreath. Now it’s time to paint them nice and shiny!
By the time you’re done painting, your wreath should be ready for its final touches- the flowers! I chose to do two petal flowers and one star flower. You can make yours look like mine by using #1 tips for the yellow and red flowers and a small #14 tip for the orange flower. The placement and amount is completely up to you.
And that’s all there is to it! These cookies can go from a twinkle in your eye to completely baked and decorated in about five hours if you’re motivated. Once you have the design down, you can make all sorts of lovely wreaths. Make sure to watch the blog closer to Christmastime for a fun holiday holly wreath I’ve been working on perfecting for you! As always, make sure to visit the comments below if you have any comments or questions that I can help answer for you. Happy autumn, and happy baking!
Foolproof Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup butter
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp almond extract
- 1 egg
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350.
- In bowl, mix together 3 cups of the flour and baking power. Set aside.
- In separate bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add in the extracts and the egg and beat until combined.
- Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture. Dough will be crumbly.
- Press dough together with hands, and roll out on a well-floured surface. Cut shapes and place on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper.
- Refrigerate baking sheet for at least 10 minutes.
- Bake for 9-11 minutes, remove when cookie edges are just barely golden. Allow several minutes to cool on sheet before moving cookies to a rack.
Royal Icing
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup water
- 3 Tbsp meringue powder
- 4 cups confectioner's (powdered) sugar sifted
- 1/2 tsp Karo syrup (optional)
- 1/8 tsp clear flavored extract (optional)
Instructions
- Combine water and meringue powder in a bowl and beat with mixer until frothy.
- Sift powdered sugar into the same bowl and mix to combine
- Add syrup and extract if desired
- Beat the icing for 4-5 minutes until it is glossy and holds a peak if the beater is turned upside down
Medium Consistency
- Continue to add water ½ Tbsp at a time until at desired consistency (icing should disappear into itself in about 5 seconds after being dripped back into the mixing bowl).
Flooding Consistency
- Continue to add water ½ Tbsp at a time until at desired consistency (icing should disappear into itself in about 3 seconds after being dripped back into the mixing bowl).
