Ok first off, these are the first sugar cookies I’ve ever made from scratch and they are fabulous! I had a bit of trouble when I first made the dough as the recipe I used indicated the dough only had to be refrigerated for one hour before rolling….um no, that does not work. For best results, refrigerate the dough overnight and use parchment paper to roll, cut & bake on! This will make your life much easier, I promise you. The end result is a thick, almost cakelike sugar cookie!
The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Directions
In large bowl, cream together butter & sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking powder and salt. Cover and chill dough OVERNIGHT. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. On floured surface or parchment paper, roll out dough to 1/4″-1/2″ thick. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 6-8 minutes.
*Note: I recommend using parchment paper to roll, cut and bake the cookies on. It saves a lot of time and keeps you from damaging the cookies before they are baked.
As for this royal icing, I wasn’t impressed. When I first made it (as per the directions), unbeknownst to me, it was too runny to pipe the outline. So the first five cookies got screwed. After that, I added a lot more powdered sugar to thicken it up and the rest of the icing went more smoothly but still to FOR.EV.ER! Perhaps that was because this was my first time working with royal icing. As you can see, I don’t have mad piping skills yet, but I’d definitely try it again! If you use this royal icing, add at least one more cup of powdered sugar.
Source: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Royal-Icing-I/Detail.aspx
