I hope you get really creative when decorating the 3D menorah cookies I designed. Get the kids involved, they will absolutely love decorating their own cookies and truly enjoy standing them up! Here’s a simple way I decorated my cookies…I made you a little video!
For a picture tutorial and my sugar cookie recipe, go here.
Head to my shop for the cookie cutter I designed for this project.
I’m so excited to share all my tips and tricks for creating perfectly rolled sugar cookies. All these tips will help to create these super cute menorah cookies that stand on their own! This is the method I use to roll out all my shaped sugar cookies. Rolling out the dough my way takes a little more time, but each shape will be exactly perfect, the days of crooked cookies are over! I definitely recommend using my recipe (which can be found at the bottom of this post) since that is the only recipe I have ever used; it’s tried and true. But if you have a favorite recipe, go for it! My method will still help create perfect shapes.
Cut a piece of parchment paper about the size of your baking/cookie sheet. Place your parchment paper on your work space and lightly dust with flour. You want your dough to stick a bit to the parchment paper!
Place a round piece of dough on the lightly dusted piece of parchment paper and dust with flour. Using a rolling pin, roll out your dough making sure you do not roll over the edges.
Do not lift your dough off the parchment paper! Turn your whole piece of parchment paper 90 degrees and continue rolling out your dough. Turn your dough 90 degrees again and continue until your dough is your favorite thickness.
To make the standing menorah cookies, your dough needs to be 1/4 inch thick or less. If it is too thick, the pieces will not fit together. The menorah cutter can be found here.
Once the dough is rolled out, dip your cutter in flour, shake it off and press your cutter into the dough; pressing down firmly. Lift the cutter off of the dough, slightly jiggling if the dough is stuck. If the dough lifts off with the cutter, place your shape back into place.
Continue cutting your shapes out, making sure not to cut too closely or the cookies may bake and stick together.
Once your cookies are all cut, carefully remove the excess dough from around each cookie. Be careful not to disturb the shapes of the cookies. The cookies should be sticking slightly to the parchment paper which helps in keeping their shapes.
When all the dough is removed, lift the whole piece of parchment paper and place on your baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees F for exactly 8 minutes (if you are using my recipe). If using your own recipe, follow the baking time listed.
Once the cookies are baked, they should be slightly puffed and light brown on the bottom and edges. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack before removing them from the parchment paper. Once cooled, your cookies should be exactly the shape you intended! To assemble the standing menorahs, simple fit the slot in the base cookie into the slot of the menorah cookie and stand!
Troubleshooting:
It’s pumpkin season! I love pumpkin desserts, as you can probably tell from these recipe for pumpkin snickerdoodles, pumpkin doughnuts with marshmallow and graham cracker glaze, pumpkin doughnut holes, and pumpkin cinnamon buns with maple glaze. When I spotted pumpkin spice pudding mix at the supermarket, I scooped it up with a few ideas in mind.
If you see this pudding mix, pick some up! It’s a seasonal release and won’t be around for long! I have no intentions of actually using this as pudding because after the success I’ve had using pudding mix in my favorite chocolate chip cookies, I knew I needed to make a pumpkin spice version. I wanted to keep these cookies simple, I didn’t want to add chocolate chips to the mix because I think it would be too many competing flavors.
After mixing up a sugar cookie dough, I rolled the cookie dough into 2 tsp. sized balls and then rolled them in cinnamon sugar. I tried using pumpkin pie spice mixed with sugar, but the flavor was too subtle after baking. This recipe is so easy and bakes up perfectly. The cookies puff in the oven and then slightly settle after cooling. They are soft, spiced, and perfectly orange in color. These cookies have all the flavor you expect in a pumpkin treat without actually using any pumpkin; kinda cool. Here’s the dairy free, margarine free recipe! They freeze well too!