What’s up blogmas friends! Alright, to be honest, I back-dated the last post. I think I’ll be taking a rest day on Sundays and start it again on Mondays. In the spirit of the holidays I tried out Martha Stewart’s Sugar Cookie and Royal Icing recipe so you don’t have to! Honestly, this was an easy recipe! I’m still ironing out the baking time for a softer sugar cookie, but if you’re making a bunch like I did, I think the crunchy version is the way to go to avoid breakage. I’ve been looking for an easy sugar cookie recipe, and I found it!
I spent a solid 3 hours baking and frosting about 50 sugar cookies on the morning of Christmas Concert to hand out to my dancers. I think it took long because I had to switch out the little cookie sheets in my mini Ninja Foodie countertop oven. It’s a good size for a kitchenette and it can fit a 9×13” pan, but it’s a hassle when baking high quantities of goods. Anyways, I feel like I did a lot of prep-work leading up for my ambitious idea of sugar cookies. One of my friends from dance used to make beautiful sugar cookies and I hit her up to find out how she makes them! She shared Martha Stewart’s recipe with me and the Royal Icing recipe that’ll create hardened frosting. Sometimes baking in Hawaii is a hassle because of the humidity. With all the moisture in the air it’s hard to let certain recipes set or harden/get crunchy. However, this recipe works!
The ingredients for sugar cookies are what you’d find in your normal pantry which was great! I was able to put together a double recipe with ease. The only thing that you may need to get from the grocery store is powdered sugar and flavoring if you wanted to flavor your icing as well. Here’s Martha Stewart’s Sugar Cookie recipe with a summary of steps to follow.
Martha Stewart’s Basic Sugar Cookies
Ingredients:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, + more for rolling
- ½ tsp. baking powder
- ¼ tsp. salt (omit if you’re using salted butter)
- ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temp.
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- Optional: candies and sprinkles to decorate
Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then, you’re going to want to add in your egg and vanilla extract to the bowl and mix all together. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Slowly combine the dry ingredients to the bowl with the butter combination. I added 1/3 of the flour at a time which seemed to work well for me. Once the cookie dough has formed, wrap it up and chill in the refrigerator for a minimum of 20 minutes.
When you’re ready to bake the cookies, roll it out on a lightly floured surface to 1/8” thickness. Cut into desired shape and transfer to a greased/sprayed baking sheet. With any scraps from cutting shapes, you can re-roll into a ball to cut more shapes. Bake for 10-18 minutes (depending on the size) at 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Cool completely on wire racks.
Ingredients:
- 1 (1 lb.) box powdered sugar
- 5 Tbs. merengue powder
- 1/2 cup water (or more/less depending on desired consistency)
To make the royal icing, mix together 1 box of powdered sugar with 5 Tbs. of merengue powder. Stir in ½ cup of water or less/more until you get the desired consistency. A thicker icing is good for outlining, and thinner icing is good for filling.
I used a squeeze bottle (the kind that restaurants put ketchup in) and that worked out very well for me! I was only using one color, so it was helpful to use a squeeze bottle for ease of decorating and icing control. I made close zig-zags in a triangle formation to form a Christmas tree, and sprinkled on circle red/green/white sprinkles as ornaments. I think they came out very cute! And the best part was it was easy to create this design.
It was definitely an ambitious project to tackle only hours before I was planning on distributing them, but I got it done. My friend shared that you are able to make the cookies ahead of time, and frost on the day/day before you distribute. I plan on making more for my coworkers and friends to go along with their Christmas gift. If you try this cookie recipe, I hope you enjoy it! Until next time…
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