I had a roommate in University who wooed with baked goods. He was famous for his pies that definitely got a few girls to look his way. He was taught the art of baking by his mother and I always thought it was so great that here was this cool, masculine guy who knew how to bake a great pie. It’s a skill we should all teach our sons.
One of his other specialties was an amazing recipe for sugar cookies. I’m a sucker for a good sugar cookie and at the time I was trying to woo my very own man so I had my roommate teach me how to make them. The recipe is really simple and can be used at any time of year. The time I got him to show it to me it was right before Valentine’s Day as I was on my way down to
This recipe has a simple icing that you can put on the cookies. But this time of year I like to use a royal icing as decoration. Royal icing is the kind that becomes very hard when it cools and you can tint it to any color. The Christmas I was pregnant I made these cookies and my sister and my husband decorated a whole bunch of pregnant snowmen with the icing. (They were regular snowmen without icing). Essential in my opinion to decorating holiday cookies are some sort of sanding sugar or sprinkles. Just walk down the baking aisle at Shoprite here in
Makes about 3 dozen, depending on the size of your cookie cutters
1/2 lb butter (at room temperature)
1 1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 Tbsp. vanilla
1 tsp. almond extract
3 cups flour
1 tsp. b. powder
1/2 tsp. salt
Cream butter and sugar, beat in the eggs.
Stir in vanilla and almond extract.
In a separate bowl sift together dry ingredients.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet.
Chill the dough in the fridge for 3 hrs. Roll out 1/4" thick, and cut out.
Bake at 375 F for 8-10 mins.
Here’s the icing recipe that Adam gave me:
1 cup icing sugar
4 tsp. hot milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. lemon juice
food coloring (optional)
Mix together all ingredients together. If it is too thick add more milk, if it is too thin add more icing sugar. Paint onto cooled cookies.
Here’s my recipe for royal icing. By the way I never minded using raw egg whites when I didn’t give these cookies to young kids, but now-a-days there are plenty of people with compromised immune systems around me (pregnant women, elderly people, young kids) so I use either meringue powder, which you can buy online or in cake supply stores, or pasteurized egg whites, and those you can get almost anywhere.
Make sure you make the icing only right before you are ready to decorate the cookies. You can place some in a piping bag and cover the rest of the icing in a bowl with a damp tea towel. That will prevent it from hardening before you are finished.
3 ounces pasteurized egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups icing sugar
In the bowl of a large stand mixer mix the egg whites and vanilla and beat on high until they start to get frothy.
Slow the machine down and add the sugar gradually. Turn the speed up to high and beat until stiff peaks form. Add food coloring if you want at this point.
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