Custom Sugar Cookies
Custom sugar cookies are the total trend right now! Raise your hand if you’ve found yourself on social media, scrolling through your feed, and the next thing you know, you’ve been watching countless videos of bakers decorating custom cookies for hours…
Am I the only one?
Being able to decorate sugar cookies requires a few things: a solid sugar cookie recipe, a dynamite royal icing recipe, and lots of patience. The idea of decorating a cookie seems simple enough right? Well it is!! With the sugar cookie and royal icing recipe below, there are infinite possibilities to creating custom cookies!
This video below shows the step-by-step tutorial on how to create a buttery sugar cookie and decorate with royal icing. Finding the right consistency for piping your royal icing onto cookies can be a bit tricky, but I’m here to help all pretty little bakers find that perfect thickness.
Once you have your sugar cookies and your royal icing bags prepped, the rest is up to you! You know you’ll have the perfect taste with the combination of the two! But remember, patience is a virtue, and there are only happy accidents.
Ingredients
For sugar cookies:
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp. almond extract
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
For royal icing:
- 3 3/4 cups powdered sugar
- 1/4 cup + 1 tbsp. meringue powder
- 3/8 cup water
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Using an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the softened butter and the sugar together on low speed until creamy.
- Beat in egg, salt, baking powder, vanilla extract, and almond extract on low speed until fully combined.
- Add the flour into the mixture, one cup at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Sprinkle flour onto a piece of parchment paper directly on the countertop. Roll dough out onto parchment paper to 1/4 inch thick. If need, sprinkle flour on the top of the dough to prevent the rolling pin from sticking.
- Using desired cookie cutter, remove shapes from the dough and transfer to a baking sheet lined with new parchment paper or a silicone mat. Leave at least two inches in between cookies.
- Bake in oven for 9-11 minutes. Once the edges begin to brown, remove baking sheet from oven. Let cookies cool completely.
- If not decorating immediately, freeze cookies for up to one month.
- To make the royal icing in an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the powdered sugar, meringue powder, and salt on low speed until combined.
- Still on low speed, add half of the water into the mixer. Slowly add more water until all of the dry ingredients are moistened. Not all of the water may be used.
- Add vanilla extract. Continue to mix until the clumps of dry ingredients cease to exist.
- Add food coloring to obtain desired royal icing color.
- Transfer royal icing to a piping bag to being piping cookies.
- To save the royal icing for later, transfer it to a container and cover with plastic wrap that touches the surface of the icing. Cover the container with a lid and place in refrigerator for up to ten days.
