12 Days of Cookies: Snowflake Cookies Recipe for MacGourmet

Once is a coincidence; twice engenders paranoia.

After making the Chocolate Crinkles dough yesterday (pictures now posted!), I mixed up a batch of Alton Brown's sugar cookie dough to use for the annual thick-frosted cookies. And today's 12 Days of Cookies recipe?

Sugar cookies.

Specifically, Snowflake Cookies, courtesy of Paula Deen (her second recipe this year). It's the decorating that sets these apart from the millions of other sugar cookie recipes out there, and a frosting recipe is included just for that purpose.

Now's a good a time as any to look this up: Are silver dragées toxic? I've heard you aren't supposed to eat them . . . OK, here's the report: Metallic dragées are edible, but the FDA does not consider them food and recommends they only be used for decoration. They once contained mercury in the silver finish (yuck). However, the only state to ban metallic dragées these days is California.

So if you're reading this from the Golden State, sorry, no shiny snowflakes for you!

Check out today's recipe on Food Network's site, or download Snowflake Cookies into MacGourmet.