Now that Rudolph was completed, it was time to finish Santa’s sleigh for my Christmas Cookie Project. I needed to bake two large sugar cookies together with two rectangular sections that would not only serve as the *floor and seat* of the sleigh but would also serve to help keep the sleigh cookie free-standing.
I drew and cut-out from heavy-duty card stock, two templates for the sleigh.
Rolling out my cookie dough 1/4 inch thick, I lay the templates on the top and cut all around with a sharp knife as well as cutting out slits for the seat and floor inserts . Lift the parchment paper the cookie is on directly onto the baking sheet. Remember to flip the template prior to cutting the dough for the second side for the sleigh. You will want a mirror image of the first side.
Rolling up some sections of parchment paper I filled the slits prior to baking to avoid the slits from closing together as the dough expanded. This is not a perfect solution but is does help. You will most likely have to do some trimming down of the slits after the cookie is baked anyway.
Shown above are the baked *floor and seat* sections of the sleigh. As mentioned earlier, they will be used to stabilize both sides of the sleigh to help it be free-standing for the final Christmas Project I am making.
When ready to decorate, make red piping and flood icing, grey piping and flood, white piping and flood icing and green piping icing. Outline the ski section of the sleigh with grey piping and the sleigh itself with red. When piping is dry, flood the ski section with grey flood and the sleigh with red flood. Pipe the *floor and seat* with red piping and later, flood with red flood icing. Let all sections dry overnight.
Next day, with your white piping, pipe lines to create outlines for snow build-up on the skis and the sleigh. Flood with white flood icing and let dry. Brush clear corn syrup over the ski area and sprinkle grey sparkle flakes over the corn syrup. With your green piping icing, create your own scroll work over the red sleigh.
Let the frosting dry completely before assembling the sleigh. In my next post about this Christmas project I hope to have everything completed and ready to show you all. Fingers crossed that I don’t break anything in the process of assembling it all 
http://vanillabeanbaker.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/santas-sleigh/