I’ve been dying to make sugar cookies and decorate with royal icing for about two years now.  But royal icing has scared the you know what out of me.  It was just so intimidating.  I’m so glad i finally bit the bullet and made these this year.  It was now or never.

It was such a great experience and if you have been longing to try your hand out at royal icing you need to do it.  it was so fun decorating them.  Ava, age 6, loved this beyond belief.  Our cookies came out stunning!!  I used this tutorial.

The only thing I would do differenetly is add a bit of corn syrup to my icing and a bit less water to make them remain shiny.  After drying the got a bit of a matte look to them.  I warn you these cookies are yummy but it is not cream cheese frosting.  They look stunning and make for fun gifts.

I hope you all get the chance to try these. 

Sugar Cookies

{ingredients}

1 ½ C butter

2 C sugar

2 eggs

2 egg yolks

3 T vanilla

4 C flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

{directions}

Mix butter and sugar until well combined, 3 minutes.

Add in eggs, egg yolks.  Mixing until well combined.

Add in vanilla.

In a separate bowl combine flour, salt and baking powder. 

Slowly add in flour mixture to the wet mixture.  Only pouring in 1 Cup at a time.

Mix until just combined.

Place dough in plastic wrap and refridgerate for 1 hour or more.

Preheat oven to 350*

Roll dough out onto floured surface and cut as desired.  Bake 6-8 minutes.

 

Royal Icing

Wilton recipe

3 T meringue powder

4 C powdered sugar

6-10 T water

{directions}

Beat all ingredients for 10-12 minutes.  Until stiff peaks form.

I used only about 7 T water.

To outline cookies I used thicker icing in the squirt bottles and then used the flood method to fill the inside.  I thinned the thick icing and place in squirt bottles.

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