| Level: | Easy |
| Total: | 42 min |
| Prep: | 30 min |
| Cook: | 12 min |
| Yield: | 30 to 45 cookies |
Ingredients
- 24 ounces all-purpose flour
- 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 pound butter, at room temperature
- 2 1/4 cups sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- Royal Icing (see recipe)
- 1 teaspoon egg whites
- Liquid black food coloring, for decoration
- Assorted liquid food coloring, for decoration
- 1 pound confectioners’ sugar
- 3 large egg whites
- 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
Instructions
- Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix on low speed until well combined. Scrape the bowl with a rubber spatula.
- Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, occasionally scraping the bowl. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill the dough in the refrigerator until firm.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Roll the dough out on a floured surface 1/8th-inch-thick and cut into shapes with animal cookie cutters. Place the cookies on a sheet pan covered with parchment paper, and bake for 8 to 12 minutes, depending on the size. Cookies should be golden brown on the edges. After cookies have cooled and are firm, they are ready to decorate, if desired.
- For the decoration, fill a pastry bag fitted with a small plain tip with Royal Icing. Place each cookie on a piece of parchment paper and outline it with a thin line of Royal Icing around the entire edge of the cookie. Allow the icing to set.
- Place 1/4 cup of Royal Icing in a small bowl and mix it well with 1/4 teaspoon of the egg whites or water. Continue mixing and adding egg whites or water until the icing is the consistency of maple syrup.
- Using a number 12 artist’s brush push a few dollops of the thinned icing around the top of each cookie until it is completely covered to the edge. Allow the cookies to sit overnight to harden. Reserve the remaining Royal Icing.
- Place Royal Icing in a small bowl and mix in several drops of black food coloring. Continue mixing and adding food coloring until you have the desired color. Spoon the black icing into a pastry bag fitted with a small plain tip and outline each cookie with a thin line of icing and decorate, as desired. For each additional colored icing, repeat the process. Allow the icing to set.
- Place the confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, add the eggs whites and lemon juice and beat at medium speed until the sugar and eggs are completely mixed and the icing is thick and white.
Nutrition Facts
| Serving Size | 1 of 37.5 servings |
| Calories | 233 |
| Total Fat | 8 g |
| Saturated Fat | 5 g |
| Carbohydrates | 38 g |
| Dietary Fiber | 0 g |
| Sugar | 24 g |
| Protein | 3 g |
| Cholesterol | 34 mg |
| Sodium | 71 mg |
Reviews
Absolutely love this recipe. The cookies are delicious and easy to roll. The Royal icing is my favorite go to recipe. I add enough powdered sugar to make it nice and thick and grab a scoop at a time to add color and water to make the perfect consistency. We’ve made this recipe since 2011 when food network had Patti Page on Barefoot Contessa.
I used Ina’s shortbread cookie recipe because it works every time. The Royal icing recipe is pathetic. I made it exactly as described. It was so loose that it ran from the pastry bag/tip with no pressure applied. Had to spend much more time than I had to salvage this disaster.
24 ounces of flour is 5 1/3 cups if measured correctly… scooping in the cup…. everyone is mixing up the mass ounces with liquid ounces… dry ingredients are oz by weigh… liquid ingredients are measured by 8 oz per cup……24ounces of flour divided by 4 ½ ounce per cup yields 5 1/3 cups. To properly bake, buy a scale, it is around $25-$50 and saves you lots of money in wasted ngredients…in this case, that is the reason many were not successful making a cookie presented by a professional, and blame the recipe…
To address the concerns of those reviewers asking about the safety of using raw egg whites in the royal icing, you can use pasteurized eggs instead. They retain the same properties of regular eggs, but are safe to eat raw. They’re a bit more expensive than regular eggs, but worth it if you’re concerned about eating raw eggs.
As for the cookie recipe, I used a food scale to weigh the flour, and the recipe turned out perfectly. Weighing the flour and making sure your oven is the correct temperature helps (no hotter than directed — an inexpensive oven thermometer will tell you if your oven temp is calibrated correctly). The cookies turned out sturdy (which helps when decorating) yet tender and tasty, and retained their definition when baking.
I also found that using butter with a lower water content helps. You can buy “European-style” butter, but Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods’ own brand organic butter (both are made by the same creamery) is also “European-style.” Well worth the extra cost, as the lower water content helps keep the butter fresher longer, you get more butter for your buck, and it stays firmer than regular butter at room temp, which means it helps keep cookies from spreading too much when baking.
I only made the Royal Icing – it was spectacular! I’ve provided the link to numerous people since our church cookie decorating last night. Plan to use again!
I haven’t experienced the problems a few others have had with this recipe. I was a bit nervous when I read about the dough being squishy/sticky. Decided to try it anyways because the cookies looked so wonderful on the show! The dough was somewhat crumbly until pressed together, wrapped tightly, and cooled. It rolled out beautifully with a bit of pressure and floured surfaces. Did not expand too much, I the details of the cutter are still noticeable. I can’t wait to try decorating them the way that was described in the show! I made shooting stars for my 1st grade daughter’s 100th day of school. Will make again!
I made this recipe, actually today, and I have to say that the dough is perfect. As a graduate from Le Cordon Bleu I learn that it is better to weight everything when baking, and here was a good example on this recipe. It is true that a cup is 8oz but when talking about liquid and it all depends on the liquid and its density (A cup of honey or corn syrup are never going to weight 8 oz because they are more dense, another good example: it is not the same volume on 10oz of sifted flour then just 10oz of regular flour, so if a recipe does not say sifted flour do not sift it, weight it first and then sift it, but if the recipe calls for sifted flour, sift it first and then weight it). My advice to you ALWAYS WEIGHT WHEN BAKING
I have not tried this recipe yet. However, after reading several reviews below I noted numerous comments that the dough was so sticky it did not work out at all. Could the problem be that the weight in 24 ounces of flour equals six (6) cups of flour, vs. the measured amount of 24 ounces of flour equals three (3) cups of flour?? Three sticks of butter seems like a very large amount for only three cups of flour. I HAVE NOT YET MADE THIS RECIPE!! So the amount of stars on my review is just a guess. Can anyone answer this question??
While the dough is tasty, I’m not really sure how the cookies pictured could have possibly been made from this recipe. Though I refrigerated the dough for HOURS, it still turned to mush a minute or two after rolling it out, and the cookies melted into shapeless glop in the oven.
I had no problem with the cookie dough and was happy. I refrigerated it and made several batch over a week. I wonder if the flour makes the difference. I used King Arthur four. I gave it a four because I too do not want to use raw eggs. I used pasturized egg whites and wasn’t happy.