Decorating Sugar Cookies

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So many of my homeschooling moms amaze me with all of their talents, one of them being my friend JenB. She has been professionally decorating cookies for a while and I CAN SAY WOWWIE! I love looking at her work. They are mini-pieces of art on a glorious little morsel of cookie. Some of them are almost too beautiful to eat.

I had been researching and researching (not wanting to disturb JenB and her work) on getting the perfect recipe for Cookie Royal Icing. Here is the one that we finally came up with for us to work with. And YES! It worked GREAT!

We did dye ours with some natural dyes because of El’s allergies… (and why would I want to put those yucky artificial dyes in my body anyway?) We used the Natural Dyes here: https://amzn.to/2KnFpSZ And although they worked, we only added enough to make a “pastel” colored Turkey. 🙂

Our next dilemma was the fact that my turkey cookie cutter was M.I.A. What to do, What to do? I have a large daisy cookie cutter and We made it into a turkey.

When using your royal icing, outline and then fill. We started with an icing bag and that made a mess. Once we switched to an icing bottle, the designed flowed much better. (ignore the crazy, weird lumps in the start of the icing – it was from the bag – and user error)

*tip – one color at a time and let dry in between

Royal icing

Ingredients

6 ounces, fluid Warm Water

5 Tablespoons Meringue Powder

2-¼ pounds (or 1 Kilogram) Icing Sugar

1 teaspoon Cream Of Tartar

Preparation

In mixer bowl, pour in the warm water and the meringue powder. Mix it with a whisk by hand until it is frothy and thickened…about 30 seconds.

Add the cream of tartar and mix for 30 seconds more.

Pour in all the icing sugar at once and place the bowl on the mixer.

Using the paddle attachment on the LOWEST speed, mix slowly for a full 10 minutes. Icing will get thick and creamy.

Cover the bowl with a dampened tea-towel to prevent crusting and drying.

Tint with food colourings or thin the icing with small amounts of warm water to reach the desired consistency.

Have fun decorating!

(*Recipe courtesy of Antonia74 at www.cakecentral.com)

I already had my favorite buttery sugar cookie recipe. It is one that we have been using for years.

Ingredients

Instructions

Mix together the flour(minus 1 cup), baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of a mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy.
Add in the egg and vanilla, then mix until thoroughly combined.
Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and stir together until you have a thick mixture.
Add the last cup of flour slowly until you get the right consistency, about that of peanut butter. If you add it all at once, yours might be too dry. If it does get too dry, I have found that you can add 1T of milk.
Wrap the mixture with clear plastic wrap, and refrigerate for an hour.
Roll out half of the dough.
Cut with cutters, then bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes or until bottom JUST begins to brown.