It’s National Nurse’s Week and we had the honor of making cookies for one of our dear friend’s nursing staff. Since the cookies needed to be delivered to multiple locations we chose to do royal icing for easy transportation. One cookie per nurse wasn’t going to cut it so we chose to do three different designs that we felt best represented all those amazing nurses out there. A heart beat, Band-Aid and stethoscope were the chosen designs.
This was only our second time using royal icing, buttercream is typically our go to, so it was fun trying out something different from our norm. The great thing about royal icing is that it dries hard, making it great for preparing cookies in advance and delivering them. There are however a couple disadvantages to royal icing. The first being that when it dries it can crack easily, luckily we did not have this issue since we were just icing small cookies. The second, the taste is much more bland than buttercream because it does not contain as much fat, which gives buttercream its rich flavor.
When icing the cookies it is good to first create an outline and let that set for a couple minutes. This will then help prevent the icing from seeping out over the edges when filling the remaining cookie. Using a toothpick or cookie pick spread the icing together until it is smooth. If you are then adding a design on top be sure to let the icing harden to prevent the colors from blending together. This took about 15-20 minutes.
And don’t forget to thank all those amazing nurses out there for all the hard work they do. We hope these cookies sweeten up their day!
Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 cup salted butter at room tempurature
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
- In a medium bowl combine the flour and baking powder.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and both sugars at medium speed until smooth. Beat in the egg and vanilla until combined.
- With the mixer at low speed gradually add the flour mixture. You may need to stop and scrape the sides of the bowl throughout. Beat until the mixture is all incorporated and pulls away from the side of the bowl to create a ball around the paddle.
- Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerator for 10 minutes.
- Lightly flour your work surface and roll out the dough out until it's about 1/4-inch thick. Using your selected cookie cutter, cut out the shapes and transfer the cookies to a non-stick cookie sheet placing 1-inch apart. Roll up the remaining scraps and repeat.
- Bake the cookies for about 8 minutes. The cookies should be nice and fluffy and light in color. You do NOT want the cookies to start to brown around the edges. Let the cookies cool a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.
Royal Icing
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons meringue powder
- 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 5-8 tablespoons warm water
Instructions
- In a stand mixer fitter with the whisk attachement, beat all ingredients together at low speed for 7-10 minutes. Start with 5 tablespoon water and increase as needed. When lifting the whisk out of the icing it should drizzle down and smooth out within 10 second. If it’s too thick add more water 1 tablespooon at a time. If it’s too thin add more confectioners’ suger until it reaches your desired consistency.
