Send a sweet message with these simple, yet delicious, sugar cookies. We decorated ours with a Royal Icing glaze to add more than just flavor: the consistency allows for more precise piping and presentation, all you need is a steady hand. The cookies were such a hit in our Valentine’s Day Lookbook, we had to spread the love and share the recipe.
Ingredients
- 2½ cups all-purpose flour
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 1½ sticks unsalted butter, softened
- ¾ cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 5 tablespoons warm water and
- 3 tablespoons meringue powder
Tools
Directions
- Whisk together flour and salt in a small bowl. Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high, about 4-6 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla. Mix on low and add flour mixture, mixing until just combined.
- Form dough into 2 balls and flatten each into a 6-inch disk. Chill disks, wrapped in plastic wrap, until firm, at least 1 hour.
- Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F.
- Roll out 1 disk of dough about ¼ inch thick) on a well-floured surface with a rolling pin. (If dough becomes too soft to roll out, rewrap in plastic and chill until firm.) Cut out cookies from dough with cutters and transfer to an ungreased large baking sheet, arrange cookies about 1 inch apart.
- Bake cookies until edges are golden, 10 to 12 minutes, then transfer to racks to cool completely. Make more cookies with remaining dough and scraps and bake on cooled baking sheets.
- For the icing: beat 4 cups confectioners’ sugar, 5 tbsp warm water and 3 tbsp meringue powder about 7-10 minutes until icing forms peaks.
- Then transfer ¼ cup icing to a small bowl for each color and tint with food coloring. Spoon each color icing into a disposable pipping bag, pressing
out excess air. Snip the tip about a ¼ inch. Twisting bag firmly, pipe icing onto cookies. Let icing dry completely (about 1 hour) before storing cookies.
