While the rest of the world knows autumn through rakes and raincoats, my California fall is much too timid for any of that.  In my corner of the world, fall is very shy, she peeks around the corner and barely tiptoes in.  Here we are well into fall and we're finally experiencing some cooler weather.  But if we really want to fall into fall and feel like we're part of the gang, we have to use our imaginations.  So we knit wooly sweaters, light scented candles, wear boots, make pumpkin breads, yummy soups and sometimes bake pretty leafy shaped cookies! 

While I'm not the biggest fan of Halloween, I still love to use the spider web, scaredy cat and haunted house cookie cutters.

I have a collection of hundreds of cookie cutters, (I keep thinking I need to make that into a blog post).  For years I made cookies for every occasion and decorated them to the max.  Now, with more free time than ever, I find myself rarely making cookies.  I think it has something to do with me knitting all the time!

To decorate the cookies with royal icing I use the recipe on the Wilton Meringue Powder can, but halve it for one batch of sugar cookies.  I water it down to the consistency of lightly whipped cream.  I like to use powdered or paste colors to tint the icing as a little goes a long way.  As a piping bag, try cutting off a corner of a sandwich size zip-lock bag and insert a piping tip.  I like to use a size 4 round tip for almost everything.  With the zip lock sealed the icing is easily squeezed out and stays pretty tidy. To "flood" a cookie with icing, first outline, then fill it in. If your icing is the right consistency it will flatten and smooth out with no hills and valleys.  For the marbleized effect I put dots of color on top of wet icing and run a toothpick through it to swirl.  If I want to add another color on top of a color, like the leaf on the pumpkin above, wait an hour or so to dry out the first layer, then pipe the green leaf on top of it.  The icing will dry firm, but not rock candy hard.  If you want to top a cookie with another one, like the ghost on the haunted house, use a pea size bit of icing to glue them together.  In a few hours they'll be dry and can be stacked in a cookie tin with waxed paper separating the layers.

I made 4 dozen and took them to church last Sunday and they were gone in a heart beat!

Zip-lock bags are great to use as icing bags.

Little dots on top of the wet icing right before I run a toothpick through them to swirl.