Here’s a gold medal idea for your at-home Olympics, sports day party, backyard games, or any time someone deserves to celebrate a big win. Turn cookies into Olympic medals by cutting a slice at the top of each cookie before baking, decorating, and threading a ribbon through the cut after they’re baked and cooled. (Tip: Freeze your dough so that it doesn’t spread too much when baking. We used the sugar cookie recipe from One Girl Cookies at the end of this post.)
You can hand them out at the end of a contest or sports game, use them as favors at a sports-themed party or a gathering to watch the Olympics, or give one (or more) to a winner you know, whether they got a promotion, won the big game, or aced a spelling test. They also make fun placecards or DIY gifts (spell out #1 Dad on Father’s Day or Best Mom Ever on Mother’s Day, for example). Victory has never tasted sweeter!
When it come to decorating your Olympic medal cookies, there are so many options:
–Write the winner’s name in icing
–Use alphabet stamps to spell out names or phrases—you can leave them plain or add a little edible luster dust in the letters
–Cut numbers, letters, stars, or other shapes out of dough and attach them with icing
–Cover the cookie in edible luster dust (go for the gold or do gold, silver and bronze)
–Bake in sprinkles in the country or team colors
And the ribbon you choose can be coordinated to match a country’s colors for at-home Olympics or a color palette for any other party. However you decorate, these will be a big winner!
What You’ll Need
- Cookie Dough—One Girl Cookies’s Sugar Cookie recipe, below, works great
- Royal Icing
- Lemon or Almond Extract (any other clear extract works, too)
- Round Cookie Cutters
- Knife
- Ribbon: We used this Red/White/Blue Grosgrain one
Optional Ingredients for Decorating
How-to
Step 1: Make cookie dough (or use store-bought), roll out to ⅜”-¼” thickness and chill in refrigerator until very cold
Step 2: Cut dough into 2 ¼” circles. If you’re pressing words into the circles, chill again in the freezer—the cookies need to stay cold before baking and for pressing letters
Step 3: OPTIONAL: Press words into cookie using stamps; if letters get stuck, dust stamps with a small amount of cornstarch, then brush it off. Press as deeply as possible without the cookie coming apart or going all the way through
Step 4: Using knife, cut a 1” slit at the top of the cookie, making sure it’s wide enough that when the cookie bakes and expands, the slit doesn’t close back up. If making stars or numbers to add onto cookies, cut those, too
Step 5: Chill dough again, then bake according to recipe directions. Cookies should be slightly gold but not quite brown.
Step 6: Let cool. If the slits have closed up while the cookies, you can use the knife to recut them open while the cookies are still hot
Step 7 (OPTIONAL): Bake stars and numbers together, letting bake for 5 min before checking; these will bake quickly, so make sure to watch and take them out before they get too brown
Step 8: Let cookies cool before decorating, then decorate any way you like:
–Use a drop of royal icing to attach stars and numbers to the cookies
–Use a small piping bag or ziploc bag with a tiny cut at corner to pipe names, laurel wreathes, and any other decorations in royal icing
–Cover in gold luster dust: Mix about 1/4 tsp luster powder with about a teaspoon lemon or almond extract to make a paint, an eyeballing the consistency so that the luster dust is wet enough to spread over the cookies, but cookies are not soaked in liquid
–Use a paintbrush to brush gold over cookie. You might:
––Cover the whole thing
––Just fill in the pressed letters
––Just paint stars or numbers
Step 9: Once decor is done (luster dust dried, etc), thread ribbon through the slit. Now you’re ready to award the victors their medals!
- One Girl Cookies Vanilla Sugar Cookie Recipe
- 2 ½ cups flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter (room temperature)
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- In a medium sized bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar on medium speed until the mixture has begun to lighten in color and texture, approximately 2 to 3 minutes.
- Add egg and vanilla and mix on medium speed for 1 minute.
- At low speed, add dry mixture to the mixer and mix for 30 seconds.
- Take the mixing bowl off of the mixer and finish mixing the dough by hand with a rubber spatula.
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Using a small cookie scoop or spoon, scoop out small rounds of dough that are about 1 ½ tablespoons in size. In the palm of your hands, quickly roll each scoop into a ball. Place them on a parchment lined baking sheet and gently press each ball onto the baking sheet, leaving 1 inch between each cookie.
- Or, roll out dough using a rolling pin and cut out shapes with cookie cutters of your choice.
- Bake the cookies for 14 to 16 minutes or until the cookies are light brown around their edges.
- Transfer the cookies to a cooling rack and let cool.
