Sugar Cookies and Royal Icing: Take Forever!

Last time we made sugar cookies they were cool and everything, but I especially loved the cookies on which I devoted about 10 hours minutes each, carefully icing each one into a masterpiece. While Kajsa and Finn knocked out a gazillion Jackson Pollocks at a time and produced a lot of deliciousness, I made the most realistic wine glasses and bottles out of Cookie that I had ever seen. I decided to take a day off and dive into an abyss of artwork, sitting forever alone in my kitchen making beautiful cookies all day, because I have all the time in the world. WORTH IT.

I MADE THESE WITH MY HANDS

I began the whole process the night before Epic Natalie Cookie Day, on ENCD eve. I whipped up the same delicious dough Kajsa and I have been using; the one with almond extract. Delicious. This time around, I really wanted to use the wine glasses and bottles for cookie cutters again, but I couldn't find them anywhere in my house. So it was Off To Sur La Table with my enthusiastic teenage brother to buy a martini glass cutter, as a substitute until I found my other alcohcutters. And it was awesome!

WHO WANTS A MARTINI, AND A LION HORSE THING

I had a few other cookie cutters from my grandmother, who baked like she was Bob Marley. Flowers, circles, deformed figurines (witch? cat? I don't know). After baking forever I got frustrated creative and made my own freaking shapes with a knife, no metal shapes or anything. Most of these looked like continents, or gingerbread men. Or islands.

So I let all those guys cool off, while making my own royal icing instead of buying it from Sur La Table. I used a "healthier" recipe that didn't call for corn syrup, because honestly, who even has corn syrup? This one calls for a cup of powdered sugar and half a cup of white sugar as a base. Then add 2 tablespoons of water and 2 teaspoons of milk, along with a dash of almond extract if you're feeling risqué.

Without further ado, I made a bunch of colors...

BEAUTIFUL... Yeah that's a pizza

SOMETHING TO KNOW ABOUT THIS ICING: Stick it in the freezer for a few minutes. It's. So. Runny. I tried adding more sugar, microwaving, yelling, among other things to find a good icing consistency, but the freezer works the best. It's like magic. But don't leave it in there forever, I mean it's not like you want a sweet brick of sugary ice or anything weird, just a thicker icing. Stir it once it's out of the freezer and you're good to go.

And as far as colors go, I just separated my bowl of white icing into smaller dishes, adding colors as I please. A brown icing takes just a bit of cocoa powder and chocolate syrup, and then I made black by adding blue to that. 

I continued to create pride and joy, all over the place.  My favorite band got in on this, because I guess some of the random shapes I made (gingerbread men, probably?) looked like Green Day.

#BILLIELOVEME

Tré even has his drumsticks! Mike is also Hulk Hogan for some reason! And the heart grenade on the album cover is made out of sprinkles AND frosting. What am I doing with my life? Oh, right, being AWESOME. We ate the band and the bottle of Jack, but I just couldn't eat the album, so I left it on the ledge of a building on Powell street. Now more people can appreciate my art! GO FIND IT. 

Till next time! Off to make the banana bread again for Fathers' Day because it's his favorite.

Royal Icing: Take 1!

Since we have been offline so long (blame college), we decided to give you all a treat:

A front-row seat to our first Royal Icing attempt.

The sugar cookies themselves were relatively simple (see recipe below), although they took quite a while to make before we even got to the icing.

Oven ready and almost perfectly spherical!

Our recipe:

1 cup butter, almost completely melted
1 cup powdered sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups flour

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter, powdered sugar, egg, almond extract, vanilla, salt and flour. Mix until smooth. Chill dough until firm, about 30 to 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper, or butter sheets, and set aside.

Roll out dough on a well floured surface until it is 1/4 inch thick. Cut out cookies with cookie cutters and carefully transfer them to the prepared cookie sheets. I used a spatula to try to maintain the spherical shape as much as possible. 

Bake cookies for 7-9 minutes. Cookies should be slightly brown on bottom. Let cool completely before frosting.

Relax, it's on wax paper...

For the frosting, we sort of cheated. I had been shopping early that day, and lost all willpower at one of my favorite cooking supply stores. Long story short, I ended up buying the royal icing in a bottle. At least it was good icing, okay?

Look how pretty!

It took about ten to fifteen minutes to ice all the cookies, and then they had to dry for about 45 minutes to an hour. Luckily, my parents weren't home so nobody tried to eat them while they were drying. By the time they were finished, I almost wished I had bought one of those frosting pens.

Smooth and dry... perfect for writing if I had a frosting pen!

Apparently the cookies were really tasty because they were gone in, like, ten minutes. I kid you not. I had 24 cookies, and they are gone. I think I had about 3. The really exciting part is that my mom was able to enjoy them as much as the rest of the family - and they aren't even gluten-free! They were delicious and simple, although time consuming.

Stay tuned this week for lunch and dinner recipes! Also, watch this weekend for an awesome St. Patty's recipe - for you, kids, and the leprechauns!

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