Dr. Seuss Green Eggs (Royal Icing Cookies)

Caden's class is celebrating Dr. Seuss this week. He requested that the two of us make cookies! I went on a Google search and found a ton of ideas! We did the Red fish / Blue fish first which I showed on Monday (click here) and today I show the Green Eggs. No I did not attempt the Ham ... lol.

So I did this on the fly and did NOT have time to order a EGG cookie cutter. So I made use of what I had on hand. I used a bug cookie cutter that I must say turned out really cute!!!

What you Need:
1 Egg Cookie Cutter (or use what you have like I did)
Royal Icing - Uncolored (white) and Tinted Green (see recipe below)

Americolor Green Food Gel

Black Food Pen

I used the dipping method with my royal icing. I started to do the dipping method about 6 months ago to speed up my decorating time. You can pipe each cookie which is a little cleaner but I find the dipping method to be the best. You get your royal icing to the outline consistency and put into a pie dish (I find this is not too deep). AFTER the cookies dry you add the details. I took a small amount of royal frosting and tinted it green. I used a ziplock bag since I only needed a small amount. I made circles on the cookies to be the yolk. After the green has dried make your markings with the food pen. I of course did this too soon and it looked a little sloppy around the green. I did the last of them after the green dried BUT totally spaced on taking a photo lol! Dr. Seuss books have a great drawn on look and that is how I made the eggs. I loved how they turned out!

Click HERE to see who I link with.

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups butter, softened 2 cups white sugar 4 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS:

1.	In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
2.	Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
3.	Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

Julie Usher, she has a GREAT YouTube video on how to make, color and make consistency adjustments. 

Royal Icing what you need:

2 lbs Powdered Sugar

1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar

5 Large Egg Whites (or equivalent) 

Flavor to Taste

Gel Icing Color

Mix powder sugar and cream of tartar in your mixer, just to make sure it is incorporated in. Slowly add egg whites, then whip start of slow then go to very high speed. She says around 2 minutes, my friend had an older mixer so it took almost 10 minutes. You want stiff peaks that hold on and won't fall off the spoon. Add in your flavor, I would suggest you use a clear flavoring.  This would be the glue texture great for ginger bread houses etc.

Take 1 cup of royal icing in a smaller bowl then add your coloring, lightly mix so you don't get air into the the icing. I'm like her and like the gel coloring. 

For Top Coating - Add 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 tsp Water (This is if you don't want to outline and flood)

For Outlining - Add 1/2 to 3/4 tsp Water

For Flooding  - Add 2 to 3 tsp Water

WATCH her video on How to Top-Coat, Outline, and Flood Cookies. YES it is around 7 minutes BUT if you have never done this technique it's a MUST she explains it perfectly.