More love for Katie this weekend. Every recipe I’ve tried from Good Things Catered has been a good one, so it’s basically a no-risk situation, which I appreciate. :) The recipe is actually from Ashlee at A Year in the Kitchen.
I have plans to potentially make some sugar cookie cutouts in a couple of weeks, so I wanted to give them a trial run before then. I also had never worked with royal icing on cookies before (only on my Wilton Course II cake), so I needed to practice that.
So, on Friday night, I made the cutouts, and then today, I iced them. And given the time of year, what better shapes to practice with than Halloween shapes?
My finished platter of cookies came with us to a surprise party for my brothers. These were definite crowd pleasers. The cookie recipe is excellent… they taste great on their own, but are even more fabulous with icing.
I had forgotten how long it takes to ice/decorate cutouts. Holy hell! I can see why I normally only do this at Christmas time.
Fabulous Sugar Cookies
(Recipe from Ashlee)
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks – 24 tbsp.) butter
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup powdered sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1 tbsp. lemon zest
5 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
Powdered sugar, for rolling
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees (You may want to wait a while to heat the oven since it will take some time to make the dough and cut out the cookies.)
2. Cream butter and sugars in a mixer for 5 minutes.
3. Add eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly.
4. Add vanilla, almond, and lemon zest.
5. Sift in flour, baking powder, and salt a little at a time. Do not over mix, this process should take about one minute.
6. Chill dough for up to a week in the fridge, or roll out and cut right away. (I had a terrible time trying to roll and cut the cookies right away. You definitely need to chill the dough first, so provide yourself with enough time to do so.)
7. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and bake cookies for 7-8 minutes. Wait until cookies are cooled before icing.
I think I got approximately 40-50 cookies out of this recipe. I used stiff consistency royal icing for the edges, and filled in by “flooding” (also with royal icing).
4 Responses to The Ultimate Sugar Cookie Cutouts
About
I'm Heather. I just turned 30. I'm happily married, and mommy to the most beautiful little girl in the world (what, you're saying I could be biased?). Determined DIYer and homeowner. Sarcastic. A perfectionist. A bleeding-heart liberal. Frugal. Loves a little dog way more than many humans. Loves food, hates exercise (it's an ongoing battle). A loyal football fan. I love to laugh. Value family and friends above all else. Vie to be a world traveler.Instagram
I love your cookies! They look great! Can you share how you make your royal icing? I have yet to find a good recipe!
OMGosh Heather! They look AWESOME!! Great job with the cookies! :) :)
Anonymous–I make royal using the Wilton recipe (you can find it at wilton.com).
I think the biggest problem with royal icing is that a lot of people expect it to taste like buttercream. It will never be that good! :) But if you start off with a good-tasting cookie (like these sugar cookies!), royal icing does compliment the flavor nicely.
Good luck!
And Katie–Thanks!
Did you just use the black and brown gel colors to make your black and brown royal icing?? If so, did you have to use a lot of it. When you use so much it really tastes horrible, but it looks good! I love your cookie designs!!