Rolled Sugar Cookies

I have to admit, when thinking about holiday cookies to make in time for Christmas, my mind immediately jumped to gingerbread; perhaps a whole family of ginger-people and matching houses all bound with white icing. But as I was reading one of my favorite dessert books, it hit me – I don’t really like gingerbread. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I hate it, but did I really want a couple dozen cookies hanging around the house? Probably not. Shortly after, I was browsing my favorite food blogger’s instagram and noticed she had made a batch of sugar cookies that were perfectly iced and inspired by @hol_fox. I then progressed to spending the next 15 minutes flipping through every photo on her insta-feed and that’s when I knew, we were going to be making rolled sugar cookies!

1. Sift together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and salt)
2. In a standing mixer, whisk together the butter and sugar until they are fully incorporated.
3. Add egg and milk to combine.
4. Turn the mixer to low and slowly add in the dry ingredients, continue to mix until the dough pulls completely off the edges of the mixer.
5. Divide the dough in half and slam the dough against the counter until you form a soft ball, then form into the shape of a square slab. Wrap both squares with plastic wrap and store in the fridge for 2 hours.
6. Preheat oven to 375˚ and lightly dust surface with powdered sugar and take 1 square of dough out at a time.
7. Roll your dough 1/4 inch thick. Try to do this as quick as possible, the colder your dough is, the easier it will be for you to punch out your cookie cutters and peel them from the surface without them losing shape. This is especially crucial if you’re doing something like 3d cookies as they’ll need to fit exactly together and any stretching will cause you to grab a sharp knife and start shaving off cookie. Not that I wouldn’t know anything about this -_-
8. You want to fit as many cookie cutters on the dough as possible, any extra will need to be re-rolled and the dough will start the warm and soften. Using a spatula, pick up each cookie to transfer onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Do this without lifting the cookie cutter up and it will help keep form.
9. Bake for 7-9 minutes, rotating the baking sheet midway through. Once your cookies start turning light brown on the edges, you’re done!
10. Let sit and cool for 2 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.

Royal Icing

• 3 cups ‏powdered sugar
• 2 eggs ‏egg whites
• 1/4 teaspoon ‏cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon ‏almond extract

1. In a standing mixer, whisk together the confectioner’s sugar, egg whites, and cream of tartar on low speed.
2. Once fully incorporated add in the almond extract (you can sub vanilla here as well if you’d like). Throw your mixer on high speed for 3 minutes.
3. If you’d like to color your icing, separate the icing out to how ever many colors you’d like, start by dropping in 2 drops of your food coloring and adjust from there. Using a piping bag or a squeeze bottle, start by outlining your cookies and flood the rest of the space with icing. I recommend fast back and forth motions within the lines to make sure you don’t pack on more icing than you anticipated. With a piping bag you might lose control of the precision if you don’t work fast and efficiently. 
4. Let your cookies sit overnight to allow your icing to set.