Holiday Sugar Cookies

Holiday Sugar Cookies

Yield: Approximately 36 medium size cookies

Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons pure vanilla
5 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Preparation:
Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, vanilla and heavy cream. Mix until smooth. Combine flour, baking powder and salt; add to the egg and cream mixture. Mix just until well incorporated; do not over mix.

Roll dough to 1/4 inch thickness between two pieces of parchment paper. Refrigerate flattened dough for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350F. Peel Parchment paper off topside. Flip and peel other parchment sheet. Cut into shapes and place cookies 1 inch apart on parchment lined cookie sheets.

Bake 12 to 14 minutes until bottoms and edges are light brown. Cool. Decorate with royal icing.


Royal Icing

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons meringue powder (found in special baking stores and online)
4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar (about 1 pound)
3 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons clear vanilla

Preparation:
Beat all ingredients at low speed for 7 to 10 minutes until icing forms peaks. This recipe makes a stiff royal icing. Water can be added to make a thinner icing- the consistency for flooding is like thick paint. Stiff icing is used for cooking borders/outlines while thinner icing is used to fill-in border areas.

Icing hardens when dry.