Easter Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

Hey Hey Happy Thursday! Hope you all are having a wonderful week so far. Ok, usually on the ol blog here I show the recipes I try and succeed at. There are many that fail behind the scenes that I never end up writing about because...well they failed. Why would anyone want to see a recipe that doesn't work, right? Well today I'm going to share with you a recipe that failed in the looks department, but totally succeeds in the flavor department, which I feel is more important :)

This was my second attempt at decorating cookies and making royal icing. The first time I tried, the icing never really fully dried and it wasn't that shiny pretty icing I see all the time on the cookies at the store. So I decided to try a different recipe. Since I'm still very new at using this kind of icing, I knew I wasn't going to be perfect at it right away. I also knew I could still make a really good sugar cookie which would make up for bad decorating. That is why I'm going to share with you my super-tasty-yet-not-so-pretty Easter Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing.

As you can see I chose a cute flower, a little bunny and what is supposed to be an egg shaped cookie cutter. Personally I think they look more like circles, but hey, they taste good...so yeah.

I made five different colors of icing. And I know the main reason these didn't come out perfect was because of my patience...you see, I don't have any. Ask my husband, he'll agree. I rushed through the icing part because I thought it was going to be easy. By all means this isn't hard, I just needed to wait until my outlines dried. Obviously I didn't do that every time.

Ok so maybe I'm not ready to be a fancy perfect cookie designer, but I'm getting there. Remember I'm a new cook, so things like this are still bound to happen. I'm just happy you let me share with you all me hits and misses. You guys rock!

Ingredients:
For Cookies:
3 Cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 Cup unsalted butter, softened
1 Cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

For icing:
2 Cups powdered (confectioners) sugar
4 tsp milk
4 tsp light corn syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla
Different food coloring

Directions:
Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Set aside.

In your mixer combine the butter and sugar until smooth. Add in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla.

Slowly add in the dry ingredients and beat until you have a smooth dough. Split the dough in half and wrap each half in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for one hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with silpats or wax paper.

Take one batch of dough out and roll onto a lightly floured surface. Keep rolling dough around on the flour until it's no longer sticky. Roll out to about a 1/4 inch and cut out your cookies. Do the same for the other batch of dough.

Place the cutouts on your baking sheet and cook for about 8-10  minutes. Remove and let cool on the sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack. 

While the cookies cool, beat the powdered sugar and milk until smooth. Add in the corn syrup and vanilla extract and stir until fully combined. 

Set out as many bowls as colors you are wanting to use. So if you have five colors, set out five bowls.

Add an equal amount of icing into each bowl. Drop in as many drops of food coloring as you want, stirring after each drop, until you reach your desired color. 

Pour icing into your decorating bottles, or plastic bags. Start by outlining your cookies with the icing color you want to use. Let the outline dry (this is what I failed to do).

Once dried, fill in the outline with whatever icing color you choose. Let that layer dry for about an hour and add more decorations to that, or leave as it is and enjoy!


Are you a cookie decorating pro or a total novice like me? Please feel free to share your icing decorating tips or any royal icing recipes you love! Can't wait to hear them!

Need a mixer? This is mine!

KitchenAid 5 Quart Mixer

Need baking sheets? These are great!

Baking Sheets

This is the same silpat I use every time I bake!

Non-Stick Silpat Baking Mat 

Got decorating bottles? I use these!

Betty Crocker Decorating Kit

Thanks for stopping by!

**I linked up to the homeacre hop, bloom designs, all things thursday, inspire me wednesday, whats cookin wednesday, wicked awesome wednesday, flusters creative muster, tutorial tuesday, show me what ya got, create link inspire, titus 2 tuesday, tasty tuesday, turn it up tuesday, the scoop, nifty thrifty tuesday, between naps on the porch, make it pretty monday, meal planning monday, best of the weekend, from the farm, anything blue friday, weekend bloggy reading, creativity unleashed, freedom fridays, kitchen fun and crafty friday, foodie friday, friday link party, thursday style

***recipe adapted from here