sugar cookies and royal icing

Okay, I promise this is the last post about cookies for a while! But these were pretty fun to make, and DELICIOUS, even if they look like they were decorated by a toddler with a serious lack of motor skills. Everything I'm about to write about comes straight from Annie's Eats: the cookie recipe, the royal icing recipe, and the ever-so-helpful guide to using royal icing. How obvious is it that I love that blog? Hopefully very obvious, because it's awesome. Anyway, enough gushing, let's get down to cookies!

Sugar Cookies
Makes about 4 dozen, depending on size
Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 cup icing sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 1/2 tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. salt
2 1/2 cups sifted flour

For real, these cookies are so easy to make. First, cream the butter, add the sugar, and cream together until smooth.

Next, mix the egg and extracts (vanilla and almond) and add those in. Mix well.

Lastly, add the salt and sifted flour, and mix until it's blended in. Then, refrigerate your dough until it's firm enough to roll out easily. (I did mine for about an hour.)

When the dough's ready, preheat your oven to 375°F and line your baking sheets with parchment (or grease them). Roll your cookie dough out on a well-floured surface (don't forget to flour the rolling pin too!) until it's about 1/4 inch thick. (It doesn't have to be perfect, just make sure you keep an eye on the cookies if they're thicker/thinner.)

Cut out whatever shapes you'd like. Remember that if you do bigger cookies you'll get fewer (it's physics or something), and they'll have to cook for a bit longer as well. Place them on the cookie sheets, and bake for 7-10 minutes.

You don't want them to be raw still, but you also don't even really want them to get too golden around the edges.

  

Once they're totally cooled, it's time for the fun part - decorating them!

Royal Icing
Makes about a ton of icing - I had enough for all of my cookies, and a lot left over.
Ingredients:
4 cups icing sugar, sifted
2 tbsp. meringue powder
5 tbsp. water, plus more for thinning the icing

First off, a quick note about meringue powder: I had no idea where to find the stuff, but managed to find it at Dicken's (a little British store that sells a lot of cake decorating supplies. Apparently they also have it at Michael's, and I'm guessing you could find it anywhere that has a pretty good selection of decorating supplies.

Put all the ingredients into a mixing bowl with a paddle attachment. Seriously, just dump them in. (Well, sift in the sugar and chuck the rest in on top.)

Then, mix on low speed for about 7-10 minutes, until the icing looks matte (rather than sheeny/shiny.) Don't worry, it's supposed to be a big clump of sugary goodness. That's called "success." At this point, chuck the chunk of icing into an airtight container. If you'd like, and you're all baked out, you can take a break here, seal it up, and leave it for a while.

When you're ready to keep going, add a little water at a time to your icing block, stirring it by hand. You want the icing to be a good texture for piping it to outline your cookies. You'll definitely want to add just a tiny bit at a time, trust me.

Once you're at almost the right consistency, divide it up into smaller airtight containers, one for each colour you plan to use. (I did four.) The reason I say almost the right consistency is because you'll still have to add colour (if you'd like). You can use gel colouring if you've got it, and that won't affect the texture, but if you use the liquid stuff like me, it'll save you adjusting the texture with extra water/extra sugar. If you do make it too liquidy, just fix it up with a bit more sifted icing sugar, and the world will be all better again.

Okay, hopefully now you've got your icing made, coloured (if you want), and thinned enough for piping. I just used clipped ziploc bags, but you'd almost definitely have better results using proper piping bags. (Or having any artistic ability whatsoever, really.) I'll recap what I did here, but honestly? I'd suggest reading/using the guide from Annie's Eats, because she's much better with royal icing than I am. Anyway, keep the tip of your piping/ziploc bag close to the cookie, and pipe the outlines on, like so:

Then let them sit and dry. I only waited about half an hour, but depending on thickness you might be looking at up to an hour. Once your outlines are set, you get to do the fun part - flooding them with icing! Thin your icing a bit more, adding water about a half a teaspoon at a time, then let your icing sit for 10-15 minutes, so the air bubbles rise to the top.

Gently stir your icing, just to pop the bubbles at the top. Now you can use a spoon (or squeezy bottle if you've got one) to put a dollop of icing inside each of your outlines, like so:

Then, use a toothpick - or a cocktail umbrella if you're classy like me - and spread the icing to the edges of the outline. This part is really kind of fun, but also a bit time consuming...I definitely enjoyed it more than the outlining though! If any bubbles come up to the top again, pop them with your cocktail umbrella toothpick. And that's it! Let them dry and set for at least a couple of hours (I left mine overnight, except for the early ones me and the boy snuck in), and they'll be all set!

See what I mean about having no artistic talent? But they're cute - well, as cute as radioactive-coloured snails and squirrels get! Not that it really matters, because they're beyond delicious. Enjoy!
c.