30th Birthday Royal Icing Cookies

We celebrated my sister's 30th birthday last weekend (thus the awesome Cookie Cake I posted earlier).  As part of the celebration, I whipped up (yeah right!) some star cookies using some ready made royal icing from the local bulk food store and this delicious Manning Sugar Cookies recipe.  

I made sure to incorporate the teal color theme too ... I'm actually kinda enjoying this new "craft" of decorating cookies so we will see where I go from here :o)

Hope you are enjoying a beautiful day!

- Kristin -

Royal Icing Carrots and Bunnies Sugar Cookies

My little guys were really impressed with my culinary skills this Easter - ha! This was my first attempt at using royal icing on cookies.  I have always wanted to try my hand at this and was pleasantly surprised at how fun they were to make.  

I used my go-to Manning Sugar Cookie recipe as the base (though I hear a lot of people like shortbread as the base cookie).  I purchased the dry mix royal icing (you just add water) from the bulk food store and the cookie cutters were purchased from Crate & Barrel. 

I learned a few things along the way - most importantly about the consistency of the royal icing for piping the outline and for the flooding of the cookie AND to have lots of toothpicks on hand :o)

I have to say though, that by the time I got to the bunnies I was getting a little tired so I didn't outline them.  That would have been ok with a stiffer icing but it was a little too runny and it kind of ran off the cookies in places.  I also just ended up using a toothpick to do the eyes, nose and whiskers and think that piping them on might be a little cuter in the end.   

All in all, I will be making more of royal icing cookies as they are so much fun and frankly made me quite popular with all the kids here at Easter!  

- Kristin -

Sugar Cookies

In my mind there is almost nothing better than a warm sugar cookie and a big glass of milk ... so this morning, the little fellas and I were busy making our favourite sugar cookies! Yum, yum, yum! This recipe was my grandmother, so it is time tested and true; I've tried other variations of sugar cookies, but I always seem to come back to this family recipe that I grew up with.

Manning Sugar Cookies

1/2 c margarine

1/2 c white sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 c flour, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt (sift these together into a separate bowl)

Directions

1. cream margarine then add sugar slowly beating thoroughly
2. add egg until just mixed
3. slowly add sifted flour mixture with wooden spoon
4. roll out dough on lightly floured surface
5. cut with cutters and place on lightly greased cookie sheet (add sprinkles if desired)
6. bake at 350 degrees 8 - 10 minutes

As with all the baking "help" I get from my four and two year old fellas, the mess that remains behind is unbelievable; and that despite a good vacuuming, I will hear that tell-tale sound of crunching as we step on stray cookie sprinkles over the next few days ...

Linking this post to Fireflies & Jellybeans.