sugar cookies decorated with royal icing

How To Make sugar cookies decorated with royal icing

• 1

  Cream together butter and sugar. Add baking powder and salt; combine. Add egg, milk and vanilla; beat until combined. Gradually add flour; if dough becomes too stiff for your mixer to tolerate, you may need to add the last bit of flour in by hand.
• 2

  Separate dough into two disks; wrap each disk in saran wrap and chill for 2 hours.
• 3

  After chilling, preheat oven to 375. On floured surface, roll out one disk of dough to about 1/4 inch thickness. Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes. Place cookies about 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheet and bake for about 7 minutes or until the edges are just very slightly browned. Move to wire rack and cool completely.
• 4

  When cookies cool, make Royal Icing: In mixer beat egg whites on high for about 6-8 minutes until egg whites form thick peaks. It is critical for you to be certain to beat the eggs long enough in order for this recipe to work. Beat in lemon extract. Stir in 4 cups of powdered sugar (by hand) and then, once mostly incorporated, beat on high until thickened. You may add additional powdered sugar for thicker results. Separate out small amounts of the frosting and color with food color as desired. Put frosting into sandwich baggies or piping bags, cut off very small piece of lower corner of bag and squeeze frosting out onto cookie to decorate. Tip: This frosting hardens fairly quickly once it is on the cookie, so I recommend icing about 10 cookies with the white frosting at a time until you've iced all of them; then go back and decorate with the colored frosting. Royal Icing recipe is from Allrecipes.com
• Last Step: Don't forget to share! Make all your friends drool by posting a picture of your finished recipe on your favorite social network. And don't forget to tag Just A Pinch and include #justapinchrecipes so we can see it too!
• Printable Recipe Card