Christmas Tree Cookies (Royal Icing)

It's on to cookie time! As you all have guessed by now I love to make people smile and show up with little treats and gifts for them. I like to do this for my kids classmates also. This year I wanted to do really nice cookies, now the Rudolph's from last year were pretty freaking amazing ... but I wanted a classic look this year. I made Ornaments, Ugly Sweaters (which I call festive because I don't think they are ugly) and Christmas Tree's. ONE even backed a little crooked and I called it my Whoville Tree!! Whoever got that one is going to have extra blessing's next year!

What you need:

Baked Cookies (My favorite Sugar Cookie Recipe)

Green & White Royal Icing (see my favorite recipe below)

Green AmeriColor Gel Food Coloring to tint Royal Icing

I used the dipping method with my royal icing. I started to do the dipping method about several 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, so you don't looses your cookie). Once you dip the top of the cookie you tap off the extra icing and then you let dry!
 

MOST times I would let the top layer sit and harden before I add the details but this design you need the top coat wet. I then took a piping bag with the un-tinted royal icing (white) and made 3 lines on the trees. the cookie had rows already so I just followed along. for the very top I added a little slow cap. You can also add a star to be fun and some light bulbs if want to add some dots with another color.

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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.