‘Tis the season for hearts and love! These cookies didn’t turn out quite like I had envisioned, but I’m posting them anyway. And a weird thing happened — some of the sprinkles turned red or blue overnight. See the little spots in the cookies that are red or blue? Weird, right? I’m not sure why this happened, but oh well!
If you are a new to decorating with royal icing, here are some helpful tips and links:
- I used my grandma’s sugar cookie recipe, which is listed below. Another good cut-out cookie recipe can be found at Bridget’s wonderful Bake at 350 [1].
- I used a royal icing recipe from Annie’s Eats [2], which is listed below.
- If you are new to decorating with royal icing, please visit this post by Annie’s Eats [3], which will teach you about outlining and flooding. Bake at 350 [4] is also a great resource for cookie decorating and ideas (I love Bridget’s book, too!).
Here are the specifics on how I made these cookies:
- I used a heart-shaped cookie cutter that I bought years ago at Crate & Barrel.
- I divided my batch of royal icing in half — dyeing one half pale purple and the other half pale pink. I used Wilton gel colorings to do this. Just use a tiny bit of food coloring because a little goes a long way — especially if you are trying to make a pastel.
- I outlined and flooded the hearts – once the flooding was complete, I dipped the heart into pink or purple sprinkles. The pale purple and pale pink sprinkles are a Wilton product, which I’m sure you could find at your local craft store.
- On some of the cookies, I made designs like polka dots and criss-crosses. Make a pink or purple heart as usual, dip the heart into either color sugar… then pipe your design on top of the sugar — then dip into the sugar again.
Omi’s Sugar Cookies
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon nutmeg
Beat butter and sugar. Add egg, sour cream, and nutmeg. Add dry ingredients gradually. Chill the batter overnight or for at least 4 hours. Roll out dough and cut with cookie cutters. Bake at 350F until golden (in true fashion, my grandma didn’t give a specific baking time. I baked the cookies for about 8 minutes). The yield will depend on how large your heart-shaped cookie cutter is — I got about 20 hearts.
White Royal Icing
4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 Tablespoons meringue powder
5 Tablespoons water
Directions:
Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until the sheen has disappeared and the icing has a matte appearance (about 7-10 minutes). Transfer the contents of the mixing bowl to an air-tight container. This will be the stiffest consistency of the icing, and at this point it is still too stiff to use for decorating. Add water a very small amount at a time and stir by hand until fully incorporated. Continue until the icing has reached a consistency appropriate for piping.
Note: you may or may not need to make two batches of this, depending on how many cookies you are making!