Hey, Kim here and I have a special treat for all of you ghouls and goblins out there. I'm going to show you step by step how to decorate sugar cookies for professional results! Here is a list of supplies that you will need:
Decorating bags- I like to have a least a couple for different colors
Writing tip
Shell tip
decorative sugar sprinkles (optional)
plastic squeeze bottle (again you may need more than one for different colors)
food coloring
plastic coupler for bag
Here are the recipes that I use:
Royal icing:
1 lb confectioners sugar
5 tbs meringue powder (found in the cake decorating section)
scant 1/2 c. water
In a bowl add sugar, meringue powder and water, beat until dense but fluffy. (sometimes I have to add a little more water to get the right consistency, just add it by the teaspoon until you get it right)
Sugar Cookies:
You really have to use a strong mixer for this, doing it by hand would be really difficult because it's a lot of dough and pretty stiff.
Mix your butter and sugar until fluffy, add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla. Add in the baking powder and salt. Stir in the flour one cup at a time until incorporated. Make sure to scrape down the sides of your bowl often. Pat dough into a disk and refrigerate for 1 hour. Roll out onto a floured surface and cut your shapes, I like thick cookies so I make mine about 3/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Bake at 375 degrees for around 10 minutes. To keep them soft watch carefully and take them out just as soon as they get golden, you really don't want any brown on them. This recipe makes about 35 large cookies or 5 dozen small cookies.
So, onto the decorating:
Step one: Take about 1 c. of icing out and put in separate bowl. In the main bowl stir in a little water and some orange food coloring to your icing, I use gel color because it's more concentrated. You want the icing the consistency of toothpaste.
Step two: Fit your bag with the coupler and tip and fill half full with your icing.
Step three: Trace around the shape of your cookie that you want to fill with icing. Let this icing dry for 20-30 minutes after piping.
Step four: Put the remaining orange icing in the bowl and add enough water to get a consistency of house paint. Fill your squeeze bottle almost to the top.
Step five: Carefully fill your shape with the icing in the squeeze bottle. I like to go around the edges first and then make a zig zag across the middle and use the tip of the bottle to move the icing around to fill in the gaps. You don't want to overflow the outline. Optional cover with decorating sugar. Let dry for several hours.
Step six: With the icing that you saved in the beginning, add green food coloring and enough water to get the consistency of toothpaste. Put it in a decorating bag fitted with a shell tip.
Step seven: Pipe a small line of icing as the stem. Switch tips to the writing tip and pipe curly lines for the stems. Let dry several hours.
You are all finished. These really are not hard to do, so don't be discouraged by the number of steps!
And for fun here is an in process picture of some of my over 100 cookies that I made yesterday for two schools!
