Chocolate Holly Decorated Cookies

I made these cookies to take to a holiday potluck. They're actually rather easy, but because of the pinterest-style decorations, look more complicated than they are.

I know how easy it is to be inspired by something seen online, only to have it turn out to be a #pinterestfail, so here's a detailed instructable on how to create perfect white chocolate holly decorations for your cookies!

I'm going to assume that if you're making decorated cookies, that you've made cookies before, so I won't show you how to make the cookies. I used the recipe noted here (for Ginger Cookies) and made a full batch. But of course, you can do this decoration on any cookie, as long as it is sufficiently flat!

So, step 1.a) Prepare your cookies. Say, two dozen.

Step 1.b) Prepare your chocolate.

You will need:

• 1/4 c. of white chocolate wafers, in red (sometimes called candy wafers)
• 1/3 c. of white chocolate wafers, in green
• 2 Ziploc bags/plastic baggies
• 2 twist ties
• a toothpick (for later on in the tutorial)

Place the red wafers in one baggie, and the green wafers in another baggie. You want the chocolate wafers to be in one corner of the baggie, for easy piping. Place in microwave, and zap for 30-45 seconds, in 15 second increments, until chocolate is melted.

Once the chocolate is melted, smoosh it all into one corner of the baggie, and use a twist tie to keep it all there. You'll see what I mean in the photo.

Then carefully cut a verrry small end of the baggie off, so that you can pipe out a very small stream of melted chocolate. And voila, you've just made yourself a cheapo piping bag! #kitchenhack for the win!

You'll be decorating these cookies once at a time, otherwise the chocolate will harden on these cookies. So grab your first cookie.

Once you've figured out where you want to place your holly, pipe your green chocolate. Here's how:

Make an almost-V; that is, a V but without having the two sides of the V meet at the bottom. See photo for visual.

Using a toothpick (and while your chocolate is still melted!), drag out three lines almost at 90 degrees from one of the two lines of your almost-V. Again, see photo for visual.

Then do the same for the other side of the line.

Then do the same for the other line.

And bingo, you've got holly leaves!

Using the melted red chocolate, pipe three little berries underneath the two holly leaves.

Bam, DONE! You've just made yourself a chocolate holly decoration on your cookie!

Repeat for the remaining 1 11/12 dozen cookies. Let cool, until chocolate is firm, and then you can pack them up to give away, or display. Enjoy!