Tag Archives: holiday cookies

Royal Frosting

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Day 2 of the Holiday Sugar Cookie Series

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Believe it or not, royal frosting is the same frosting thats used to glue gingerbread houses together and decorate flood frosting cookies. For those of you unfamiliar with what flood frosting cookies are, flood frosting is the technique used to create smooth and matte finishes like the Starbucks holiday cookies.

For those of you who’ve decorated royal frosting, you also know that its a stiff mess, that dries in about 30 seconds. The trick is to work backwards from frosting to icing. This approach is great because you can make a stiff frosting thats excellent for gingerbread houses but can also be thinned to flood sugar cookies.

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There are countless royal frosting recipes that could work. I chose to work with meringue powder instead of real egg whites because I expected my cookies to sit in room temperature for a few days and I wanted to be sure no one got sick.

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Since you will be working with egg whites (in a powdered, meringue form),  make sure that all of your equipment is clean and oil free or frosting might not come together otherwise. Keep this in mind when you choose a flavoring or extract to work with because you’ll be adding it to your frosting.  I worked with Wilton’s clear vanilla flavoring to prevent any discoloration.

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After all the ingredients are gathered, all you need to do is combine the dry ingredients in the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the wet ingredients in a separate cup, and then join the two together. At this point the frosting is thin, very thing. A few minutes on medium high, the frosting becomes stiff, fluffy and ready to be used on whatever you may desire. This year I decorated some gingerbread houses with my friends Megan and Katie!

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I’ll be sharing techniques on thinning the frosting out tomorrow. If you end up making this frosting today, the frosting lasts up to a month after its made.  Just store it in your fridge with a wet towel over the bowl to prevent it from drying and a quick whisk with the whisk attachment will freshen it right up.

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Frosting tip: A good thing to keep by hand when working with royal frosting is a water spray bottle. I like to gently mist the surface of the frosting to prevent it from drying out, especially when I plan on thinning it out later anyways.

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Royal Frosting

Originally From: Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds of confectioner’s sugar
  • 1/3 cup meringue powder
  • 3/4 cup warm water
  • 1 Tbsp oil-free extract or flavoring

Directions

  1. In the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the confectioner’s sugar, meringue powder by hand using the whisk attachment.
  2. Combine the flavoring with the warm water and add slowly to the dry ingredients while mixing very slowly (stir or 2).
  3. When the water is completely added in, increase the speed of your stand mixer to medium high (6 or 8 on a Kitchen aid) and mix until fluffy. Stop as soon as it reaches stiff peaks as over mixing will cause your frosting to break down.

Cut-out Sugar cookies

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Day 1 of the Holiday Sugar Cookie Series

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Every year for christmas, my friends and I get together for a secret santa. Every year, I want to decorate sugar cookies for the first time, but I never really knew how. It all came together when I became the host of the exchange last year. It didn’t help that Ree over at the Pioneer Woman hosted this amazing looking cookie decorating session. I was sold.

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It took some research and some more research. Crafty ideas don’t come very naturally to me and decorating cookies definitely errs on the side of the artistic side of cooking but Ree’s pictures had me sold. These cookies were decorated with a flood frosting. I referenced Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle a lot throughout my decorating process and she has some amazing cookies so I definitely recommend checking her site out.

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I’m starting this series with a sugar cookie, followed by a royal frosting then ending with some tips and techniques that I picked up throughout this process. I did, however want to get you started on the right foot — according to Sugarbelle, flood frosting sugar cookies work the best when you make the cookies a day ahead. This gives them a chance to dry out just a tad bit and let the oils reabsorb into the cookies. Go ahead and make these cookies tonight or tomorrow, then you’ll get a chance to make the frosting and follow along my posts throughout the next few days!

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These sugar cookies don’t deviate too far away from your regular sugar cookie recipe. They involve creaming together butter and confectioner’s sugar, adding an egg and a flavoring, then finishing off with flour, salt, and baking powder. I personally love the flavor of vanilla so thats what I went with but the original author proposed almond extract. One nifty trick is the use of confectioner’s sugar for dusting a work surface instead of flour, which really preventing my cookies from becoming over worked.

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Cut-out Sugar Cookies

Originally from: Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle

Ingredients

  • 2 sticks of unsalted butter
  • 1 1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 2-3 tsp flavoring (I used vanilla)
  • 2 1/2-2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 ts. salt

Directions

  1. Cream together softened butter and confectioner’s sugar. Add the egg and flavoring. Mix until well combined
  2. Add 2 1/2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt to the mixture. If the dough is no longer sticky and can come together as a ball then it is ready. If it is still too sticky, add another 1/4 cup of flour.
  3. Roll out on parchment to about 1/4 an inch thick, use confectioner’s sugar for dusting as necessary. Then, cut and bake at 400 degrees for 7-8 minutes.

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