Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

I have tried dozens of sugar cookie recipes over the years, with varying results—too buttery, too flakey, break too easily, too crispy-but these are top notch.  They are both firm and creamy, while still being able be battered with frosting. My friend Colleen provided me with the recipe, and I now share it with you!

Naturally, the cookie that did not require anything but a circle cutter was my favorite. That's right, I play favorites.

Colleen’s Sugar Cookies

1 ½  cups organic butter, softened

2 cups organic white sugar

4 local large eggs

1 teaspoon REAL vanilla extract

5 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased, non-stick cookie sheets, or preferably atop parchment paper.
3. Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. The thicker the cookie, the longer it will take to cook. Try to bake similar shapes together, too, for even cooking. A good indication of “doneness” is a very light browning around the edges of the cookie! Cool completely before removing from the baking sheet, or else you’ll risk breakage!

Now, for the decorating: This recipe makes quite a few cookies, depending on the size of cookie cutters you use. I ambitiously set out to decorate these little buttery bites of deliciousness with royal icing—a hard icing that is traditionally made from softly beaten egg whites, powdered sugar, and sometimes lemon juice is added for flavoring. The result is a gorgeous, shiny and smoothly decorated sugar cookie that looks like a top-notch professional job.

 I did not realize the effort that went into making cookies with this type of frosting—it’s well worth it, just because of the awesome results you get when you stick it out and have patience. But for someone like me, who gets too excited about the finished product and loses patience quickly, just a few cookies decorated in this manner were enough for me. The remainder will be slathered with a delicious buttercream, appreciated for their taste over looks.  

Royal Icing: Ingredients

4 cups powdered sugar, sifted

2 tbsp. meringue powder

5 tbsp. water

Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Mix on low speed until the icing has a reduced shininess—this takes anywhere from 7-10 minutes. I often don’t see a reduction in sheen, so I mix it until I get bored and am ready to move forward.  Transfer the contents of the mixing bowl to an air-tight container.  

Royal Icing: Directions

Let’s start out with a list of what you will need:
A batch of sugar cookies to decorate
A batch of royal icing (you may need more than one batch, depending on how many colors you use, and how many cookies you decorated)
Icing gel colors – liquid food colorings are likely to affect the consistency of your icing, while gel colors are concentrated bursts of color that don’t add extra liquid
Small airtight containers for each color of icing you plan to use
Spoons
Toothpicks
Disposable pastry bags fitted with small round tips (size 2-3 works best)
Squeeze bottles are also awesome, but I managed without them!

Royal icing is applied in two stages: outlining and flooding. When you whip up your royal icing, it is still far too thick to decorate with easily. Add water, a few drops at a time, until the frosting thins enough to be easily piped from your pastry bag. If your arm starts to shake while applying the piping, it’s too thick. If the icing is oozing from the tip, it’s too thin.  Add water to thin, powdered sugar to thicken.

First, you have to outline each of your cookies with their intended colors. For the ghosts and skulls, I outlined in white.  Each of your airtight containers will hold your various colors. You’ll have to wait for the outline to dry before you can proceed forward. Eat a cookie while you wait. If you’ve made any black frosting, don’t eat it.  It tastes terrible by itself, and I urge you to reconsider decorating tombstones or cauldrons in all black, no matter how cute it looks. Your mouth will thank me later.

After the outlines dry, you can flood the cookies with watered-down versions of the icing and move it around to the different parts of the cookie with toothpicks and spoons. To do this, use a portion of the thicker icing in its airtight container.  Add water, a very small amount at a time—I do a few drops, stir, and hold my spoon up into the air until the icing falls off of it in a steady slow stream. If it’s too thin, the icing will go all over the place. Unfortunately, you’ll only know it’s too thin when you try to flood a ghost, only to have it overflow its piped boundary and go all over your pants. Take a deep breath, eat a reserved cookie, and drudge through until you have them all flooded and you vow to either never do this again, or never decorate your cookies any other way, ever again.