Ask Nancy Archives

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I'll be answering ten questions each month... and if your question is chosen, I'll post a personalized response!

Submit Your Question

Do you have a baking, decorating or celebrating question for Nancy? Now is your chance to have it answered.

Check here each month, Nancy will select ten questions submitted by viewers and posting her answers here.


Cookies Questions

My cookie dough sticks to the cutters. How can I prevent this?

Landon - from Plainfield, IL

What type of icing can I use to ice cookies with?

Noelle - from Lynwood, IL

I have been trying to make the spritz cookies and have a lot of trouble getting them to stay on the cookie sheet surface. What am I doing wrong?

Wendy - from Alexandria, IN

How do you color spritz cookie dough? I'm most familiar with kneading the icing color into roll-out cookie dough, but won't kneading into the spritz dough make it too tough or too soft?

Melinda - from San Antonio, TX

How is flooding done when icing cookies?

Caron - from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada

Can you share a recipe for a delicious frosting for cookies that won't smear if stacking the cookies?

Linda - from Rochester , NY

Do I have to refrigerate cookies I have frosted with icing made from butter, light corn syrup and confectioners' sugar?

Lucy - from Tucson, AZ

I want to bake train cookies for my son's 5th birthday. What would be the simplest method to decorate for someone with no experience at this?

Tracy - from Redding, CA

Could you please tell me what is wrong with my M&M and chocolate chip cookies? I've made them for years, and now they spread and are so paper thin you can see through them. Please help!

Pat - from Wadsworth, OH

I love making cookies, however not the hard crunchy ones. How can I make soft baked chocolate chip cookies?

Shandi - from Grand Bahama, Bahamas

On one of your shows, you made flower shaped cookies, then placed them in what looked like a white chocolate flower pot/vase? Can you tell me where I can find instructions for making this?

Flora - from Rochester, NY

Can I decorate cookies with Color Flow or is regular royal icing better?

Yael - from Herzylia, Israel

I bake and sell homemade cookies as fundraisers, but sometimes the cookie requests keep me in the kitchen baking! I want to know if you can freeze cookie dough, and how? Or, do you bake the cookies and freeze them?

Kay - from Houston, TX

Nancy, can you freeze spritz cookies? I am having a cookie dough party and we are bringing rolls of homemade cookie dough to trade and then toss in our freezers.

Sheri - from Olathe, KS

I am looking for the recipe for a cookie recipe that was shown on your show. It was made using pie crust sheets cut into 16 slices, filled, rolled and baked. Can you help me?

Gayle - from Hull, IA

When do you sprinkle the colored sugar onto spritz cookies … before or after baking?

Laureen - from Worcester, MA

When making sugar cookies, how can I keep a nice, clean edge?

Mary - from Jessup, MD

Do you have a recipe for no-chill sugar cookie dough?

Katy - from Fulshear , TX

If a cookie recipe calls for canola oil can I use vegetable oil instead, and what is the difference between the two?

Vanessa - from San Marcos, TX

Can I melt the fondant I bought to cover cakes and cookies?

Sheila - from Houston, TX

I baked cookies on Sunday. I have them on my table to prepare them for royal icing on Tuesday. The cookies are for Saturday. It’s ok if they are kept at room temperature?

Gretel - from Union City, NJ

Every time I decorate my cookies they don’t look shiny when they are dry. How could I get a shiny and bright icing for my cookies using the royal icing recipe (I usually use meringue powder, confectionary sugar and water)? Thanks!

Claudia - from Guadalajara, Mexico

How do I transport cookies that have iced decorations?

Barbara - from Akron, OH

In your Oatmeal Lace Cookie Recipe, is the butter salted or unsalted?

Linda - from Aurora, CO

Can I use margarine for the Roll-Out Cookie Recipe?

Nathalie - from Caracas, Venezuela

If you are making the chocolate spritz cookies and you do not have a cookie press, what can you use?

Brandy - from Marana, AZ

When I bake cookies, they spread really thin. What am I doing wrong?

Chris - from Danville, CA


The Public Television cake decorating show providing easy projects for special celebrations. Not intended to replace instructional classes.