Hello! Time is definitely flying! we are already in the second Friday of February and Valentine’s day is coming. We can be creative in so many ways to give unique pieces made by us. So that is why I bring sugar cookies out today, they can be any shape and you can let your imagination fly and decorate them, but if you’re a beginner like me you can start with simple decorations and then move on to more complicated stuff. Let’s start this!

Ingredients:

*In this picture there are ingredients for half of the recipe

• 4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for surface
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened not melted
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs (room temperature)
• 1 teaspoon of the extract you prefer (I used vanilla but could be lemon or almond)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F degrees.
2. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl and set aside.
3. Beat butter and sugar with a mixer on medium speed until pale and fluffy.
4. Add eggs and extract.
5. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture little by little; mix until combined. (do not over mix or cookies will spread when baking and the shape will not be the one you are expecting)
6. Divide the dough in half and shape it into a disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes. This is a very important step, do not skip it or your cookies will turn in a very frustrating process, it would be difficult to roll and cut out.
7. Transfer dough to a flat work area and roll between 2 pieces of parchment paper to 1/8 inch thick.
8. Put the rolled dough back in the fridge for about 15 minutes (use a baking sheet for dough).
9. Get the cookie dough out and cut out your cookies. Space them 2 inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. Re roll scraps and cut out again as necessary in order to get as many cookies as possible from your dough.
10. Bake cookies until golden, 12-15 minutes (Check them at 12 minutes, if the are done and a little golden do not wait till 15, nobody wants super brown cookies – this will also depend on the temperature  of your oven cause some of them have more temperature than the one set). Let cool completely before icing on sheets on wire racks.

Once they are completely cooled it’s time to ice them. Here is the recipe of royal icing I used.

Royal Icing (you will need a piping bag and if you are just going to do a simple decoration there is no need for a tip, just cut the end of the bag)

Ingredients:

• 4 Cups shifted confectioner’s sugar
• 3 Tablespoons of meringue powder
• 6 Tablespoons of warm water
• 2 Tablespoons of fresh lemon juice.
• gel food color (in case you don’t want it white, gel because it will no affect the consistency of the icing and it’s more concentrated so you don’t need that much)

Directions:

1. In the bowl combine the powdered sugar and the meringue powder.
2. Whisk them together on medium speed if you’re using an electric mixer, if not, i works perfectly OK if you do it by hand.
3. Add 6 tablespoons of warm water to the mixture little by little and add the lemon juice.
4. Add color.

Now its time to decorate! I added some sprinkles to give them a little more color.

You can give them as a present to a friend or anybody special. They are good company for a cup of coffee also! Have a great weekend!

If you want to do just a few cookies, you can do half of the recipe for cookies and half of the icing.