Melted Snowman Cookies

I had to share the adorable cookies I made yesterday for our church’s annual cookie exchange. I wish I could take credit for the idea but it was one that I have seen floating around on the internet lately. One thing I can take credit for, though, is making them more complicated and time consuming…as is true Michelle fashion. I give you that warning from the start so that if you want to make these a bit simpler then search for “melted snowman cookies” in Google images and you will find all sorts of styles of these cookies that people have done by using premade sugar cookies and decorating gel tubes for all the details. I wanted mine to have a little more dimension to them so I used a few more products and some different techniques to make my own version of these whimsical little guys.

I started by making a batch of round sugar cookies. You can buy premade cookies at the grocery store but I always like to make my own. Click here for my sugar cookie recipe. One batch of dough made thirty eight 3 1/2″ circle cookies.

I then prepared all the detail pieces. First I took a jar of confetti sprinkles and separated out the colors for the snowman buttons.

I wanted to be able to stick some of the arms up in the air so I made them out of melted chocolate. To do this, I melted some chocolate, poured it into a disposable decorating bag, fitted with a #3 decorating tip, and piped out various styles of stick arms on waxed paper. I then placed them in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes to firm up.

I also wanted the noses to stick out of the face so I made them with some orange modeling chocolate that I pressed through my clay gun. I cut it into little pieces and then rolled the ends between my fingers to give them more of a carrot shape.

For the scarves, I took some red fondant, rolled it thin and cut it into strips. I then used a knife to make small cuts on the ends of the strips.

Next were the marshmallow heads. I only made six heads at a time since that is what fit well on my nonstick mat. You want to be sure to place your marshmallows on a nonstick, microwave-safe surface. Silicone or parchment paper are also good options. I used a nonstick mat that I line my cake pans with. I rubbed the mat with an additional coating of shortening to keep the marshmallows from sticking then I placed the mat on a cardboard cake circle and stuck the whole thing in the microwave for about 30 seconds. I watched closely as the marshmallows expanded and then stopped the microwave just before they doubled in size. I then used my fingers to smash them down slightly into the different shapes of “meltedness.” I found that the best way to remove the marshmallows was to let them cool a little then take a small knife, also coated with shortening, and slide it under the marshmallow until it releases from the mat.

Here are the marshmallow pre-microwave:

And post-microwave:

I completely assembled six snowmen at a time before moving on to my next batch of marshmallows. To assemble the snowmen, I made a batch of royal icing and thinned it down so that it was runny but still thick enough to stay in place on the cookie. Click here for a royal icing recipe.

You can just spoon the icing onto the cookie if you want but I used a squeeze bottle and first outlined the cookie then filled in the outline with more icing. I purposely made sure to make some of the icing pour off the sides of the cookie so that it looked like the snowman had melted right off the surface.

Once the icing is on, carefully shape a scarf how you want it then attach it to the wet icing. Next add a head, arms and buttons. If you want arms sticking up like on this guy, add a small dot of icing to the back of the hand to help it attach to the marshmallow.

I then attached the noses with a dab of melted chocolate and finished by adding some eyes and mouths with black royal icing and a #1 decorating tip. If I do these again I think I will add the eyes and mouth first and then attach the nose because the nose made it difficult to work around when adding the other features.

As you can see, I tried to give each snowman his own personality.

Enjoy this holiday season and remember, no matter how busy and stressful it gets, you surely can’t be having as bad of a day as this guy:

Until next time, God Bless and Sweet Dreams.