If the icing on your sugar cookie tree cutout doesn’t really scream “Christmas tree,” it’s time to turn to that shaker full of green, red, and white sprinkles.
“When all else fails, sprinkles make everything look good and hide a world of sins,” Arty McGoo, aka Liz Adams, said with a laugh.
Almost everything Adams creates looks good. A quick scroll through the Arty McGoo Instagram page will tell you all you need to know about what kind of cookies to expect from her—posh, playful, exquisitely designed. And the best part is that Adams wants to help you do the same.
Her creations aren’t really for sale, but her knowledge is. She teaches cookie decorating classes in person at Studios on the Park once a month, online via McGoo U, and takes them on tour to places around the world.
Arty McGoo’s next in-person workshop is a beginning cookie decorating class on Dec. 3 from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Studios on the Park, where students will learn to create a gingerbread house and Christmas tree. Everything is there, ready for aspiring decorators to use, and Adams will go step-by-step through every little detail and design element.
“People come in and say, ‘I could never make that,’ and then they leave with something similar,” Adams said. “It’s really a bonding experience to create with people.”
Helping people craft something they didn’t believe they could make is the most rewarding part of her work. It’s why she started teaching people 10 years ago, and why she continues to do it today.
Adams used to be a “hobby hopper,” she said, painting, drawing, taking photographs. When she found cookies, it encompassed so many of her hobbies that it kind of took over. Cookies fulfill a lot of her need to create: She draws inspiration from everywhere, plans and designs the set, thinks about the colors, arranges them, photographs them, and then teaches others how to make them.
“I feel like cookies are a really personal way to gift someone something,” she said. “And it fits for everything.”
If you can’t make it to an in-person class, McGoo U online classes are subscription-based with either a monthly or yearly subscription. Both receive the same five monthly videos. While yearly subscribers have access to everything Adams has ever recorded, monthly subscribers can only watch the current month’s videos.
The more you learn, the more you can communicate with those slightly crunchy, slightly soft treats, Adams added, admitting with a laugh that cookies will take over your life.
While it may seem daunting at first, anyone can start decorating with what they have in their kitchen, she said. Toothpicks and zip-top bags are all you really need in addition to the cookies themselves and royal icing.
Approximately 99 percent of what Adams adorns her edible art with is royal icing. The consistency of that icing, how wet it is, will dictate how enjoyable your decorating time is. To glue a gingerbread house together, you might need a thicker product, but by adding water to the icing, you can use it to fill in the top of a cookie.
“You make almost anything into a cookie, absolutely anything,” she said. “Like little edible canvases.” Δ
Editor Camillia Lanham can be reached at clanham@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Holiday Guide 2022.