Drop In & Decorate

We love our Beater Blade. You'll love it, too.

 

Sometimes one small change in kitchen equipment can make all the difference, and that's what happened when we bought a Beater Blade for our KitchenAid stand mixer.

The blade, which retails for $20 or so, comes sized for KitchenAid, Viking, Cuisinart and Kenwood mixers. The outside edges of the beater have a rubber layer that works just like a rubber spatula. That means that you don't have to stop your mixer to scrape down the bowl.

We've used the Beater Blade to mix our sugar cookie dough. But where the blade really shines is in making Royal icing.

This is one tool you'll want to have in your cookie-making kitchen.

Cookie cutters: a special discount for our readers

If you're planning a Drop In & Decorate® event, the nice folks at Ann Clark Ltd. want to help.

Now through the end of December, they're offering a 10 percent discount on all cookie cutters, with free ground shipping on orders of 4 or more cookie cutters.

Cutters range in price from $3.99 (tin) to $6.99 (copper), and come in both traditional and more contemporary shapes, like doggie bones, tea cups, cowboy boots and martini glasses. If your cookie decorating friends are like ours, you can really have some fun with these shapes, and they're a great size for decorating and donating.

To claim your discount, go to Ann Clark Ltd., place your order, and enter Promo Code BLGA14 at checkout.

Making cookies-for-donation easier, with cookie mix in a box

Know what's great about Drop In & Decorate cookies?

There's no one right way to bake or decorate! While many hosts use our sugar cookie and icing recipes, many do their own thing.

We love that.

One of our goals is to make hosting a Drop In & Decorate® event easier and more affordable, and the nice folks at Pillsbury have partnered with us this month to help. They've donated 90 VIP coupons, worth $3.00 off any Pillsbury baking mix, frosting or flour.

Last week we baked up a batch of Pillsbury's reduced-sugar cookie mix, which is one of the items you can purchase with Pillsbury's coupons.

The mix is formulated to make drop cookies, but we decided to try rolling the dough to cut out with some of our large cookie cutters.

 

It worked!

We did make a few adjustments to the directions on the box. First, we chilled the dough (45 minutes in the refrigerator, or 5-10 minutes in the freezer) to make it easier to cut out. While the package makes three dozen small drop cookies, we were able to make 10-12 large cookies with the same amount of dough. We placed the cookies farther apart, six to a cookie sheet, to give them plenty of room.

 

Cookie dough mix can be a real time-saving alternative to making your cookies from scratch. If you make the smaller drop cookies, it's also an economical way to make a large number of cookies for donation.

It's nice to have a reduced-sugar option, too.

(Email to lydia AT ninecooks DOT com if you'd like Pillsbury VIP coupons; available while supply lasts.)

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Read what people are saying about Drop In & Decorate 2009:
Holiday project idea: Drop In & Decorate (Sarah's Cucina Bella)
World Series Cookies for Drop In & Decorate (In Good Taste)
Drop In & Decorate: Bake, Decorate and Donate Cookies (Food Blogga)
Drop In & Decorate! (La Mia Cucina)
A Sweet Idea and a Sweet Snack (One Hot Stove)
Drop In & Decorate: 10,000 Cookies and 10,000 Smiles (Culinary Types)
Drop In & Decorate: Have Fun, Do Good (In the Kitchen and On the Road with Dorie)
Cause and effect (Hedonia)
Drop In & Decorate: 10,000 cookies = 10,000 smiles (Cora Cooks)
Drop In & Decorate (Savor the Thyme)
Culinary art with a touch of service (DinnerCakes)
Drop In & Decorate (Andrea Meyers)
Get free cookie mix for a Drop In & Decorate party (Chew on That)
Cookies make people happy (What's Cooking Blog)
Drop In & Decorate: Bake, Decorate and Donate Cookies (Young Mothers Serving Others)
Cookies for a Cause: Drop In & Decorate (Kitchen Gadget Girl Cooks)
Cookies for Giving: Works for Me Wednesday (Bake at 350)
Drop In & Decorate {Cookies=Smiles} (Tidy Mom)
Drop In & Decorate This Holiday Season (InnCuisine)
Who will decorate the 10,000th cookie? (The Inadvertent Gardener)
Go on, make my day! (Grow. Cook. Eat.)
Will yours be the 10,000th cookie? (Fresh Eyes)
Drop In & Decorate for the holidays (Sticky Gooey Creamy Chewy)
Drop In & Decorate (The Cooking Adventures of Chef Paz)
Drop In & Decorate (No Fear Entertaining)
Drop In & Decorate (Thyme for Cooking, The Blog)
Drop In & Decorate -- Cookies for Donation (A Year of Slow Cooking)
Happy Cookies! (Soup and Dessert)
Create Smiles with Drop In & Decorate® (Mele Cotte)
Giving Thanks One Sugar Cookie (and House) at a Time (A Girl and Her Oven)

Special thanks to Kalyn's Kitchen, Tartelette, Lucullian Delights and Last Night's Dinner.