I will say this: sugar cookies can be labor intensive. They take a lot of time, and usually by the time I'm finally ready to decorate them, I just want to be done with the whole project. Here's a quick breakdown of how I make sugar cookies easier and less laborious:
Day 1: make the dough
Day 2: roll out, cut, and bake the cookies
Day 3: decorate (plan for a minimum 3 hour process for an entire batch)
Day 4: give away (an extra day after decorating allows the royal icing to set properly)
3 - 4 days may seem time-consuming, but doing it all on one day makes for a long, frustrating day spent in the kitchen. Separating out the responsibilities makes each task manageable, even if it does require a little planning ahead. And when it comes to decorating cookies, I need all of the time and patience I can muster.
Sugar Cookies
yield: dependent on the size of the cookie cut outs, but 1 1/2 dozen larger snowflake-shaped cookies and over 1 dozen smaller star-shaped cookies
7/8 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup confectioner's sugar
zest from 1 medium lemon
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 tsp other flavoring (as I mentioned above, I used Rose Water, but you could easily double up on vanilla)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter, sugar, and lemon zest together.
In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and flavorings.
In a medium bowl, sift the flour and salt together.
Add the egg mixture to the creamed butter and sugar. It won't incorporate all that well, but mix it on medium low for about a minute. Gradually add in the flour. Only beat the mixture until it forms a dough. Avoid over-mixing which will cause cookies to spread.
Scrape dough out onto plastic wrap, form into a rectangle, wrap, and refrigerate for at least an hour.
Rolling out, Cutting, and Baking:
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Let the dough set out at room temperature while the oven preheats to make it easier to roll. Feel free to divide the dough in two to make it easier.
Roll the dough out to 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut the dough into whatever shapes you like. Two different sizes of cookie cutters will help you make the most use out of your first rolling out of dough. Re-roll the dough scraps once. After that, bake the scraps for snacks and icing practice. Here, I used a snowflake cookie cutter and a smaller star cookie cutter. I got 12 snow cookies and 12 smaller stars on the first rolling out.
Place cookies on baking sheet about 1/2 inch apart and bake for 11 -13 minutes until set and barely beginning to brown on the edges. Time will vary based on the size of your cookies, so my smaller star cookies only took about 8-10 minutes.
Royal Icing
yield: more than enough to frost the above recipe of sugar cookies
yield: more than enough to frost the above recipe of sugar cookies
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp warm water
3 tbsp meringue powder
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cream of tarter
1 lbs powdered sugar
In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together the water, meringue powder, and vanilla by hand. Whisk in the cream of tarter. Add all of the confectioner's sugar and mix on low speed with the paddle attachment for 10 minutes. Divide out dough and tint with color as necessary.
Decorating Process:
One batch royal icing
White sanding sugar
White, blue, and silver sugar pearls
One piping bag for each color of icing, fitted with a plain round size 3 piping tip
One batch royal icing
White sanding sugar
White, blue, and silver sugar pearls
One piping bag for each color of icing, fitted with a plain round size 3 piping tip
For each color of frosting you use, you will need two separate amounts of frosting: one for the outline, and one to fill in each cookie. So for a light blue cookie, I have two bowls of light blue frosting. One is just like the frosting in the recipe, and the other had a little water (a couple teaspoons to about 1/2 cup frosting) added to make it thinner and more spreadable.
Using the frosting as made in the recipe, pipe an outline around each cookie using a size 3 plain round piping tip. If the frosting is difficult to pipe, remove the frosting from the bag, stir in a little (about 1 tsp) water, and start again. Then, use a small spatula to spread some of the thinner frosting to fill in each outline.
I found it easier to pipe all of the outlines before flooding the cookies with thinner frosting.
I found it easier to pipe all of the outlines before flooding the cookies with thinner frosting.
I placed some sugar pearls on the still wet royal icing. Then, I sprinkled with white sanding sugar, giving the snow-affect look on your cookie. The sugar pearls worked out great, particularly the blue and the grey ones. White ones got lost in the royal icing and sanding sugar.
If I were to do these again, I would definitely use less blue dye. The blue worked on the smaller stars, but it really overpowered the larger ones. The packaged pretty ones and the rejects (that still make for nice decoration):
If I were to do these again, I would definitely use less blue dye. The blue worked on the smaller stars, but it really overpowered the larger ones. The packaged pretty ones and the rejects (that still make for nice decoration):
