Hello friends!
Today's December 1st, thus opening my very favorite season of the year.
To celebrate, I want to share some of my favorite sugar cookie recipes and tricks. It's Christmas Cookie season, after all!
Let's start with a recipe.
This one is the Gold Standard for sugar cookies. You'll notice that it uses powdered sugar instead of granulated-- don't worry, that's just part of the magic.
This recipe also recommends using emulsions, which basically means a fancy version of extract. You can use plain old vanilla and almond extract.
Bake these cookies until they juuuuuust begin to turn golden-brown on the edges, or until the tops are no longer shiny.
Now let's talk about frosting.
When you're working with sugar cookies, you have two basic frosting options.
Royal Icing or Glaze-
This type of frosting will harden so you can stack the cookies on top of one another. This is the normal icing option for sugar cookies.
My favorite hardening recipe is called Sweet Hope's Frankenfrosting, which is half royal icing and half glaze, making it the best of both worlds. It hardens like royal icing, but still has the taste and soft bite of a glaze. (Note: I increase the meringue powder to 3 Tablespoons).
Buttercream-
This is the soft, yummy frosting that you find on cakes. This type of frosting will NOT harden, so you can't stack cookies without creating a mess.
HOWEVER, you can't beat buttercream for taste. When you pile soft buttercream on top of a soft cookie, ohhhh my. You've got the stuff of dreams.
Because we're friends, I'm going to share my Super Secret, Jenna-created, Lick-The-Bowl-Clean recipe for buttercream.
Jenna's Secret Buttercream
2 cups salted butter (note: use cold butter)
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
2 teaspoons vanilla
6 cups powdered sugar
Cream together butter with vegetable shortening. Add vanilla, mix until light and fluffy.
Add in powdered sugar, one cup at a time, beating after each addition until frosting is well-mixed and fluffy.
Decorating!
Now you've got a great cookie and a batch of frosting-- how do you decorate?
Generally, the best way to decorate a cookie is with a piping bag and tip, so you can squirt out frosting in a design. Once you've got the right materials, it's actually easier than using a knife and it's much more attractive.
Here's a video showing how to pipe roses-- this is one of the easiest frosting techniques yet always gives a stunning look. This works best with buttercream frosting.
Royal icing, however, needs to be watered down a few drops at a time until it sort of pours from your spoon in the texture of molasses or honey. You can spread this frosting onto your cookie with a knife, dip the cookie's top into the frosting, or squirt frosting onto the cookie with a piping bag.
It takes some practice, but you can do some really cool things with royal icing.
Merry Christmas!
Go eat cookies!
-Jenna
