Sugar cookies

I've been making cookies with royal icing since Christmas, and it's become a bit of a mania.  What I love about them is that there are no limits when it comes to decorating them.  Each cookie is a blank canvas just waiting to be painted.   I made the cookies above for a friend from college and her three small children.

I use Martha Stewart's sugar cookie recipe from that new-ish book of hers that's all about cookies.  I've never really liked Martha Stewart, but I've got to say I respect her cookie recipes, and that cookbook is definitely worth buying.  I followed her directions exactly except for one thing.  I watched one of her how-to videos online (and I can't for the life of me find it now), and in it she said you ought to use cognac instead of vanilla.  She's right.  It adds a certain something that vanilla just doesn't. The dough was easy to roll out and for the most part the cookies really kept their shape, especially when I put them in the freezer for a while before baking them.

(Italicized notes below are from me.)

INGREDIENTS

• 4 cups sifted all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract <-- OR cognac!

DIRECTIONS

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl.  (Uh, stir them.)

Put butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy. Mix in eggs and vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Gradually mix in flour mixture. Divide dough in half; flatten each half into a disk. Wrap each in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour or overnight.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees with racks in upper and lower thirds. Let one disk of dough stand at room temperature just until soft enough to roll, about 10 minutes. Roll out dough on a lightly floured work surface to just under 1/4 inch thick, adding more flour as needed to keep dough from sticking. Cut out cookies with a 4-to-5-inch cookie cutter (Um, ANY size will work, just bake cookies that are roughly the same size on the same pan.), transferring shapes to parchment paper-lined baking sheets as you work.  You can crowd the pan more than you might think.  They do not spread very much, if at all.  Roll out scraps, and repeat. Repeat with remaining disk of dough. Chill cookies in freezer until very firm, about 15 minutes.

Bake, switching positions of sheets and rotating halfway through, until edges turn golden, 11 to 15 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Or carefully lift all of the cookies, still on the parchment paper, off the baking sheet and set the cookies/paper on a counter.  They will become rather rigid and crunchy.  Decorate as desired.   (End of Martha's recipe.)

The frosting is royal icing, which is made with a pound of powdered sugar, about 1/2 cup of water, and 5 tablespoons of something called meringue powder (beat these together with an electric mixer or a spoon). I bought my meringue powder at that snooty kitchen store in the mall, and I'm starting to see it at big-box stores, near where you'd find cookie sheets, cutters, sprinkles, etc.  Use gel food coloring, a toothpick-full at a time, to color it in small batches.

I used to ice them by using a pastry bag, but you know what?  It's more fun and a lot easier if you simply dollop the icing on with a spoon and spread it around with a toothpick.  Have lots of toothpicks on hand.  The icing will stay wet for at least 10 minutes, so feel free to swirl a couple of wet colors together for a marbled effect.  Any sprinkles that you add to the wet icing will stay there.

I tried this for the first time today: I thinned a dab of gel food coloring with water until it was watercolor-like.  Then I painted it on the surface of a mostly-set cookie to add subtle details.  Example: the crosshatched pattern on the cones above.  I was very pleased with the results and fear that this new development will only add to my mania.

Once you ice them, you'll need to let the cookies harden for at least a few hours.  Martha says you should allow them to air dry overnight, but that seems like madness to me.  A few hours should do it.  Then put them in whatever Tupperware-type container you have, using parchment paper or waxed paper between layers.  They will taste better after Day 2. The icing adds a bit of moisture to the cookie, which mellows and becomes less obnoxiously crunchy.

Comments

[Michelle Watson]

Kelly, just wanted to let you know I've really been enjoying your blog. Although I'm not too happy that I get to look at those gorgeous cookies but not taste them. They look freakin' fantastic!

Seriously, where do you find the time?

[Kelly]

Thanks, Michelle! I'm on day 3 of spring break, so that's where the time comes from. It's kind of a weekend project and not something I'd attempt after a day at work, for example. You can break it down into three steps though, and spread it out over a few days, so it's not a total time-suck.

Day 1: make the dough. Half hour, tops.
Day 2: roll out and bake half of the dough. Hour, tops.
Day 3: make the icing and decorate the cookies. These took about an hour and a half.

I wish you could try some of these! They are really tasty. :D

[Denise]

Artists should NOT be allowed to post pictures of their cookies...the rest of us cannot compete!

[stateless]

these are stupidly awesome, kelly. STUPIDLY!!

by the way, i enjoy every one of your posts and often want to comment but find myself too lazy to click all the way through. how is that for lame.

[Kimmy]

I don't even think I could bring myself to eat those cookies- they're so gorgeous! I would probably hang them on my wall...until they crumpled and all, unfortunately.

[Kelly]

Thank you everybody! You should give these a try--they're not that hard to make. And they're so much fun.

[Wade MacMorrighan]

I remember Martha saying that about sugar cookies using cognac, but I have only ever seen one brand of cognac; and Google never seems to recommend anything specific in terms of baking. I was wondering what brand/ variety you bought or used? I have never tasted cognac before. Does it taste like any sort of apple, or anything? I have wondered, because I thought cognac was made from apples.

[Sandon]

In Martha Stewart's Recipe she actually uses vanilla, and then uses 2 table spoons cognac or milk. She doesn't replace the vanilla for cognac. She just ads the cognac for added flavour.

[Kelly]

Interesting! I really like the way these turned out without vanilla at all, but maybe I'll try your idea. Thank you Sandon!

[Terry Smith]

Kelly, I make sugar cookies every year and enjoyed your suggestion about the cognac. I used orange cognac ---it definitely creates a slightly different tasting cookie (as opposed to using vanilla). However, when I decorate my cookies, I.....
1. thin the Royal Icing to a paint like consistency. (By the way, I use the meringue powder as well---the original Royal Icing called for raw egg whites.) Once the frosting is thinned, I let my kids go at it with basting brushes. It creates a very similar looking cookie to yours but, I think, takes half the time.
2. I also use Wilton colors which I think you use as well---they're ten times more vibrant.
3. When making cookies with kids, I try to stay in the compatible color ranges so.......if the colors accidently get mixed, it's still pretty (eg red/yellow/orange).
4. One last suggestion--- when I roll out cookies, I do it on a marble slab that I take from the freezer. You can go directly from making the batter to rolling out the dough. The coldness of the stone allows you to make very thin cookies with no distortion in the baking.

Hope these suggestions might help others

[Kelly]

Awesome tips, Terry! I use a marble slab too, and you're right, cold makes it better. I've never skipped the refrigeration process, so I'll take your word for it on that one. Hope you had a great Christmas!

[Terry Smith]

One last thing, if you're making Xmas cookies with white frosting, you need to invest in the Wilton Icing color called White-White. It makes your frosting white like snow as opposed to a buttercream white which is akin to dirty snow. I use white a lot for my cookies. Colored sprinkles look beautiful against a white background. The white nonpareils are also a "must" to make everything look sweet and snowy. The white frosting is good for snowmen, xmas trees, angels, etc. I do something like you Kelly when it comes to trees and wreathes----like painting with a white toothpick frosting on green frosted cookie and adding some bright red hot candies for the berries. Very pretty.