Christmas Sugar Cookies

As you know, I read Annie's Eats a lot. She always makes the most beautiful sugar cookies for every occasion. I always assumed I'm not artistic enough to make such professional looking cookies. However, I decided to try and do it for 2 Christmas parties I had last week. With a little planning and preparation, I think anyone can do this. It just takes a lot of time and planning. 

First, I began by deciding what shapes I wanted to make and how I would decorate them. Its helpful if you think about how many colors you want to use. So I took the cookie cutters, traced them onto paper and colored them how I thought I would decorate. 


I made the cookie dough next. Here is the link to her original posting, before she ventured into royal icing. 


PART 1: COOKIES

Ingredients:
1 cup butter (note: butter MUST be at room temperature or you should take a cold stick of butter to the large side of a cheese grater... this recipe will not turn out the same if you can't cream the butter into a fluffy texture)
1 cup powdered sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 ½ t. almond extract
1 t. vanilla extract
1 t. salt
2 ½ c. sifted flour (I don't sift my flour...cause I don't have a sieve...I should probably try that!) 

Directions:
1. Cream butter. 

2. Add powdered sugar. 

3. Blend in egg, almond extract, vanilla, salt and flour. 

4. Chill dough until firm. (I don't chill mine that long because it is impossible to roll out when very cold and will crack. If you chill it, which you should do, let it sit out on the counter for about 10 minutes before trying to work with it). 

5. Roll to ¼” thickness (mine might have been slightly thicker) on a well-floured surface and cut with cookie cutters. (WELL floured, seriously. This dough gets sticky as you work with it. Flour your rolling pin as well.) 

6. Place on greased cookie sheet and bake at 375° for 8-10 min.

The cookies will not turn brown, or not very brown at least. 

PART 2: ROYAL ICING

Royal Icing is essentially powdered sugar, water and meringue powder. People used to use egg whites in it back in the day, but raw eggs are frowned upon  now so I use Meringue Powder which is made by Wilton and sold at Michaels. 

Ingredients:
4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 tbsp. meringue powder
5 tbsp. water

1. Combine ingredients in a mixing bowl. Mix with your hand mixer on low for about 10 minutes until the icing doesn't glisten anymore. The icing will be really thick and creamy. 

2. Transfer the icing to one big Tupperware. I usually refer to this as the "main" bowl - I keep this white and thick and then use smaller bowls to do colors and consistencies. Since Royal Icing never goes bad and doesn't need to be refrigerated, any leftovers can be kept easily. 

3. Transfer a scoop (depending on how much you need of a certain color) of icing to a smaller container. This is a good time to dye the frosting. If you want to dye the frosting, you should use gel icing not liquid food coloring because it adds too much liquid. 

4. Thin out the icing with a very small amount of water, maybe 1/2-1 tsp of water. You want it to be thick but workable. If you add too much water, you can add some of the "main bowl" icing or if its really watery, just add more powdered sugar. Its very adaptable and you can always correct your mistake, which is great! 

5. Put icing into a pastry bag - this is one time I use disposable, you don't want to clean up Royal icing, its toooooo sticky! (you can also use a ziplock with a corner cut off) Use a small decorating tip (#2 or #5 work well, depending on cookie size) and pipe around the outside of the cookie. You want it to be totally enclosed because this will serve as a "flood gate" for when you fill the middle of the cookie with thinner icing. If you are having a hard time getting a smooth pipe around the edges, for example the frosting is skipping or jumping as you squeeze, it is too thick and you can add a little water to the bag and mix it around.

6. Once the piping is totally dry, take the same small container and add enough water so the icing is thin and will run off your spoon when you are done mixing it. It should be considerably thinner but not watery. Add the water in very small increments to get it to the proper consistency. Once you have thinned out your icing, take a small fork and put a little bit of icing in the middle of the cookie. Use the fork to spread the icing throughout the middle of the cookie. Pop any air bubbles that appear.

7. Let the cookies dry completely and then add any additional colors or decorations you want. If you are doing an "overlay" color - like the red on a candy cane or the ornaments on the tree, you want to use the thicker version of icing that you used to pipe the frosting. 

I should have taken more photos but I was running short on time and had very sticky fingers! 

I think that is about it, but if you need a step by step with photos, check out Annie's blog.