Rainbow Cookies

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I’m a sucker for anything having to do with rainbows — because, duh, COLOR! Color that is so neatly organizing in a visually pleasing order. Swoon! Continuing on with my I-wish-I-were-in-Hawaii theme, Hawaii is full of rainbows. You will see at least one every day. I mean, the Hawaii license plate has a rainbow on it. So naturally I had to make rainbow cookies to continue with my tropical theme!

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.
  • I used a royal icing recipe from Annie’s Eats, which is listed below.

Here are the specifics on how I made these cookies:

  • I bought a rainbow cookie cutter on Amazon.
  • You’ll need red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet food coloring. If you want to be super accurate, throw indigo into the mix as well. Because, you know, Roy G. Biv. I used Wilton gel colors.
  • There is no outlining or flooding involved with these cookies. All I did was pipe lines of icing onto the cookies to make the rainbow. You’ll need a round pastry tip for this — I would stick with a medium-sized tip. Make sure that your royal icing isn’t too runny. You want icing that will hold its shape after piping.
  • For some reason (likely due to white balancing issues with my camera), it looks like my rainbows are missing purple. It looks like I made two sweeps with blue icing. Weird!

Omi’s Sugar Cookies
Print Recipe
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 the size of the cookies you make. I made a couple dozen rainbows.


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.

You will likely need to make two batches of this icing in order to have enough to make all the necessary colors for the rainbows.

DSC_4303x900Hope you enjoyed the pineapples, whales, and rainbows! Palm trees, octopi, and sunshines are comin’ up next.



1 thought on “Rainbow Cookies”

  • Ahhhh… So nice to see something that reminds me of sun and warmth. 😎 Thanks so much for posting those, and I’m so sad you have to spend your spring break in Wisconsin!! Hope it warms up soon.

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