The Best Sugar Cookies
Who DOESN’T love a good sugar cookie? Especially around the holidays when they are shaped like a pumpkin or ghost or Santa or a christmas tree. But to be totally honest, I prefer chocolate to be present in every recipe I use, but I could seriously eat an entire batch of these cookies sans chocolate! And they’re easy and fun to make too! My favorite part is icing them 🙂 Oh, and an added bonus – you don’t have to chill the cookie dough before rolling and cutting! SCORE!
Of course I discovered these recipes through Pinterest! I slightly modified the sugar cookie recipe, and below that is the recipe for the royal icing. The sugar cookie recipe yields about 3 dozen cookies depending on the size you cut them, and the icing yields more than enough to ice a whole batch of cookies and then some. Enjoy!
Sugar Cookies Ingredients:
- 1 cup softened butter
- 1 cup granulated white sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 egg
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3 cups all purpose flour
Sugar Cookies Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 350° F.
- Using your mixer’s paddle attachment, mix the butter and sugar until smooth. (I like to “taste test” this part 😉 )
- Mix in vanilla extract and egg.
- Combine baking powder and flour in a separate bowl. Slowly mix this into wet ingredients. If the dough becomes too stiff for your mixer, finish mixing with your hands.
- Divide the dough in half so it’s easier to work with, roll dough to about a 1/4 inch thick on a floured surface and use your favorite cookie cutters to cut your shapes.
- Place cookies on a greased cooking sheet. They will not spread out much when cooking, so you can place them fairly close to each other on the sheet.
- Bake for about 5-7 minutes; I usually take them out once I notice the bottom edges starting to turn light golden. But remember, even if the cookies don’t look golden and ready, they will be perfect once they cool. Transfer to a cooling rack.
Royal Icing Ingredients:
- One 2lb. bag confectioner’s sugar
- 1/3 cup plus one tablespoon meringue powder (I purchased mine at Jo Ann’s)
- 1-2 tablespoons vanilla extract (or any oil-free extract or flavoring)
- about 3/4 cup warm water
Royal Icing Directions:
- Using your mixer’s whisk attachment, mix the powdered sugar and meringue powder.
- Combine the extract with the warm water and slowly pour into the dry ingredients while mixing.
- Mix at a medium-high speed until the icing is fluffy and can form stiff peaks. Do not over mix!
- Use food coloring to make whatever color you need for your cookies (or just leave it white, I like that too) and ice your cookies. Here and here are some helpful tips for using royal icing.
- For “flooding” icing, you will mix in about another 1/4-1/3 cup of water to the icing so it will spread/flood easier. But just add a little at a time and stop once it’s reached the consistency you want.
Notes:
- For my fall cookies, I just used the icing at it’s “flooding” consistency instead of outlining and then flooding. I personally don’t feel like taking the time to mix “outline” consistency icing and then flooding, maybe if I was a professional I would, but I think it looks fine with just flooding.
- Make sure you keep icing covered with a damp paper towel over the bowl while you aren’t using it. This icing dries pretty quickly and will harden and no one wants that.
- You will most likely have leftover icing (you could try halving the recipe, but I haven’t tried that). The icing will keep for at least 2 weeks, but I’ve heard it can keep for up to a month. I keep it in a Pyrex bowl with a lid in the refrigerator and it keeps well. Just taking it out and mix with a spoon next time you plan on using it.
I’m sure I will be making Christmas cookies soon, so I will be posting those when they’re done 🙂
I hope you enjoy this yummy recipe!
xx
Kirsten
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