Reindeer & Sleigh Cookies

After assembling our gingerbread houses and staring at the really long roof line of the two houses, I thought it would be cute to add a cookie sleigh with all 9 of Santa's reindeer. I really enjoy decorating a cookie I haven't seen too many times or many variations thereof. Reindeer are one of the not-so-popular cookie designs...and for good reason.

I have to admit, when I picked up this reindeer cookie cutter from a Wilton 20 pc set, I had to turn it several times before I recognized it as a reindeer. I knew that wasn't a good sign for having to figure out how to make it look like a reindeer with icing. I was having a difficult time visualizing the body shape with legs flying through the sky, so I sketched a reindeer template to place over the cookie as a guide for piping the outline.

Outline and fill your reindeer:

While the brown royal icing is still wet, add a thin line of white royal icing to highlight to lighter areas of the reindeer fur:

For the double reindeer cookies, I took two reindeer cookies (before baking them) and placed the reindeer cookie cutter somewhere over the center of the 1st reindeer cookie and pressed. Remove the portion in the center of the cookie cutter and then butt the 2nd reindeer up to the body of the 1st cookie. Don't forget to add the tail back to the 1st cookie. Bake.

Line and fill one reindeer. Wait a few minutes for the icing to set and then line & fill the second reindeer. I placed black sugar pearls for the eyes and a black sprinkle for the nose. Rudolph, of course, got a big red candy for his nose.

I used frosting (rather than royal icing) to pipe the antlers for a little extra texture:

Pipe black hooves on the reindeer. I thought they looked a little plain, so I added a jingle bell collar to each reindeer. Pipe a curved line and sprinkle with sanding sugar. Place yellow sprinkles for the bells. 8 reindeer got green collars and Rudolph got red.

For the sleigh, pipe the outline of the sleigh & fill with red royal icing, While the icing is still wet, sprinkle red sanding sugar. Pipe a silver base to the sleigh and sprinkle with silver sanding sugar. Remove excess sanding sugar.