By Mary Love Koons, Catering Contributor

As Southerners, details are of the utmost importance to any party we plan! While we “ooh and ahh” over crafting the menu, we are also stirring to find a way to differentiate each event and tailor it to the exact occasion we are celebrating. What’s one way to achieve this? Iced cookies! Custom cookies make it socially acceptable to eat a cookie whether it’s a 10:00 a.m. brunch, 2:00 p.m. shower, or an evening soiree. The versatility of iced cookies is a dream. While we love the visual of plated iced cookies, we can’t get over the fun of using iced cookies as place cards, bagged favors, or even as gift tags!

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Photo by Koons Kitchen

While the visual aesthetic of our dessert delights is very important at my catering company Koons Kitchen, we never want to sacrifice the taste in our haste to get to the decorating! There are millions of sugar cookie recipes out there but we have landed on a soft, thicker sugar cookie that has a hint of vanilla and an abundance of almond. When looking for or developing your own sugar cookie recipe, make it unique to you! Once you find a base recipe that you love, experiment with different liqueurs for your own special flavor. It’s all a matter of preference and developing your own signature recipe. Vanilla, Almond, Hazelnut, Brandy…these are just several options to experiment with and add your own twist! Once you’ve landed on your favorite recipe, we can’t emphasize enough the importance of baking time. A sugar cookie that is overcooked is a crumbly mess! We’ve found that our ideal bake time is about 8 minutes. You may have to adjust for your oven, but this is our sweet spot!

Photos by Koons Kitchen

After you’ve decided on your favorite recipe, get to decorating! The iced cookie is a clean slate and you can dress it up for any occasion that you want. This is where our creative juices get flowing and we decide how we want to personalize our event with cookie cutters and colorful icing. Order a plate of margarita cookies for a fiesta or celebrate with monogrammed baby bottles for a new arrival’s “Sip and See!”

Another way that we love using the iced cookie is to send them home with our guests as party favors. We love matching cookies to the invitation or theme, placing them in clear bags, and adding a bow for a perfect takeaway. This is a fun surprise to guests as they make their way out the door. If you are using other favors, then we suggest using our cookies as gift tags on the favors with a nice “thank you” or the guests name written on them.

Iced cookies are never out of season! Whether it’s making iced cookies your signature Valentine’s Day treat, taking them to tailgates and fall festivities, or monogramming iced cookie stockings for your Christmas party, they are the perfect go-to no matter the time of year. Whether you want to make them from scratch or order them from a bakery or online, they are the perfect touch to personalize every occasion!