St. Patrick’s Day Cookies

It’s Wednesday already??? The sun’s been out and the week is flying by. Do you have your green all ready for tomorrow? You don’t want to get pinched.
#ouch

We have 3 adorable little girls who are real spitfires living next door to us. They just love coming over here and want to touch everything they possibly can. It’s a hoot!!! I like to take them surprises for different holidays. Who doesn’t like a surprise???

I love to make and decorate sugar cookies and recently bought a new shamrock cookie cutter, so I was happy to have an excuse to use it.

I have a sugar cookie recipe that a friend of mine shared with me many years ago. I’ve tried others from time to time, but always come back to this one. It’s my favorite and they last so well. They don’t ever seem to get stale.
#winning

The dough for these cookies needs to be made ahead of time and then popped in the fridge for a few hours so I usually mix it up a day or two before I’m planning to make cookies.

I didn’t bother to show the process of making the cookies, because…well…I was in a rush. But I’m guessing you can figure it out. You’re obviously pretty smart.
#yourereadingthisblog

I did however snap some pictures while I was mixing up the Royal Icing I use for decorating

You want the consistency to be thick enough to pipe an outline on the cookies before thinning it to a “flooding” consistency to fill in the cookies. If it’s too thick when you go to fill them in it won’t level out on it’s own and make a nice smooth surface. I use one of 2 kinds of “dye” for the icing. The one pictured above is made by Wilton. The other one is a gel that comes in a little squeeze bottle. Both work well.

I wanted to show you the various greens and how I just continued to add more color. I started with a toothpick, but moved on to a knife for the additions.

I go back and forth between using a pastry bag for the icing or a squeeze bottle. It really just depends on how many colors I’m doing. But today since it was just one, I went with a bottle.

You can see the icing on the outline is a little “stiffer” than the icing in the middle. It’s been thinned a bit.

Some of the cookies I left alone, but I added sprinkles to some.
#kidslovesprinkles

Leave the cookies sitting out several hours to overnight until the frosting hardens. Then store in an airtight container with wax paper between layers.

UPDATE: THIS IS A DIFFERENT RECIPE THAN I ORIGINALLY SHARED. IT’S EVEN BETTER THAN THE PREVIOUS ONE. 🙂

Cut Out Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

1 Cup/2 sticks Unsalted Butter
1 1/2 Cups Powdered Sugar
1 Lg Egg
1 1/2 t Baking Powder
1/2 t Salt
1 t Vanilla
3 Heaping Cups Flower

Royal Icing

2 LB Powdered Sugar
5 T Meringue Powder
1 Splash CLEAR vanilla
3/4 C warm water

Instructions

Cut butter into cubes and cream with sugar (nope, it doesn't need to be room temp)
Add baking powder, salt, vanilla and egg to creamed butter and sugar
Add flour one cup at a time. This is easiest in a stand mixer like a Kitchen Aid. Mix on medium speed until well incorporated. You will know it's done when the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl. It shouldn't feel sticky to the touch.
Roll dough out on wax paper with extra flour to 3/8 inch thickness
Cut cookies with desired shapes and place on cookie sheet about 1-2 inches apart
Bake at 400º for 8-9 minutes. These cookIes DO NOT SPREAD🙌🏻

ROYAL ICING

Combine powdered sugar and meringue powder in mixing bowl
Use paddle attachment to gently mix together
Start adding water. Mixture will be thick and lumpy
Finish mixing the rest of the water and add splash of vanilla. The mixture should be like thick honey consistency.
Turn mixer down to med-high and mix an additional 2-4 minutes until icing is thick and fluffy.
Put in bowls to color ( I like gel colors) and then put in piping bags to decorate

I’ve got an Easter goody to go with the cookies when I deliver them tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it goes and fill you in on that later.

Hope you’re having a wonderful week so far. Spring is in the air.

Lisa
XOXOXO

Lisa

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