Every Christmas I drool over the perfectly decorated sugar cookies. I love the embellishments, the shinny frosting, and the endless options for shapes and themes. Determined to make my cookies look like those found in magazines I found a recipe for cookies and royal icing and got to work. (The recipe I used was a combination of 2 recipes from my copy of "The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book" and the royal icing recipe was formed after reading several recipes and a little bit of trial and error.) My cookies definitely didn't look like those in magazines but they were pretty tasty!
With Easter right around the corner these would make some awesome treats!
Lets get to it, shall we?
Preheat oven to 350 and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
14 tbsp butter
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt.
Combine the sugar and butter. Beat in the vanilla and eggs one at a time until combined.
Reduce the speed of your mixer and mix in the flower mixture.
form the dough into two large discs and wrap them in saran wrap. refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Roll the dough out and cut your cookies out!
Bake them at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Let them cool completely before decorating.
As for the royal icing, I am going to make a confession. I can't remember exactly what I used!
If I am correct I used:
2 large egg whites
2 teaspoons lemon juice
3 cups powdered sugar
Mix them together throughly.
divide them into separate bowls to add color.
carefully pour them into squeeze bottle or a pastry bag.
I really liked using the squeeze bottles! I am not sure what gave me the idea to try them but I was so glad I did.
Sugar cookies can fit into every occasion! Why not have a cookie decorating contest at your next party!
