Valentine's Day Cookie Sticks

Course: Dessert, Snack

Cuisine: American

Keyword: sugar cookie recipe, sugar cookies

Prep Time: 30

Cook Time: 11

Total Time: 41

Servings:

Calories: 160kcal

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Ingredients

Sugar Cookies

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt or kosher salt
1 cup unsalted butter 2 sticks, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract see flavor options in notes

Royal Icing

4 tablespoons meringue powder I use Wilton Brand
4 cups powdered sugar about 1 pound
6 tablespoons warm water to start, see additional notes below
gel food coloring

Instructions

Cookies

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt, and set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. This should take 2-3 minutes.
Add the egg and vanilla and beat another minute or so.
Add the flour mixture slowly. (Be careful not to add too much at a time or you will have a snowstorm of flour.)
Blend until all of the flour is incorporated. The mixture will look crumbly at first but just keep blending until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl.
Remove about half of the dough from the bowl and knead by hand just a bit to form a smooth ball. Roll out dough onto a lightly floured work surface, or onto a piece of plastic wrap (as described in detail in the blog post above).
Cut out cookies into desired shapes and place entire baking sheet of unbaked cookies into the freezer for 5 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350°F and bake cookies in preheated oven for 9-11 minutes, depending on the size and thickness of your cookies.
The cookies are baked when then are no longer shinny on top, but they will not show much of any change in color.
Cool on baking sheet just a minute or so, then carefully move to a wire cooling rack and allow to cool fully before decorating.

Icing

Beat all ingredients until stiff peaks form. *Make sure all bowls and utensils are totally grease-free or your icing will never reach proper consistency.
Spoon some of the thick white icing into individual bowls and add coloring as desired.
Add additional water, about 1 teaspoon at a time until you’ve reached the consistency you need.
I prepared thick/outline consistency icing in white, red, pink and blue, and fitted them with 1.5PME tips. I also prepared a medium/flood consistency icing in the same colors, and fitted those bags with a #2 tip.
Note- The thick/outline icing should be about the thickness of toothpaste. Thick enough that it stays in place when piped onto a cookie, but not so thick that it hurts your hand to squeeze out the bag.
Medium/flood consistency icing should be about the thickness of shampoo, or corn syrup. Just thin enough that when you are stirring the icing in a bowl and you pick up the spoon and allow icing from the spoon to fall into the bowl, the line of icing should disappear into the rest of the icing in about 12-15 seconds.

Notes

I HIGHLY recommend using a large stand mixer to mix up the dough, if at all possible. It is possible to mix up the recipe with a hand-held mixer, but it will take a lot more hand kneading to combine all of the flour.

Be sure to omit the additional salt if you are using salted butter in the recipe.

Flavoring options - Feel free to add your choice of fresh citrus zest (1-2 teaspoons), or add 1/2 to 1 teaspoon almond extract in addition to the vanilla extract listed.

If you prefer a more crisp cookie, simply bake an extra minute or two.

Baked cookies will remain fresh at least one week (stored in a Tupperware type container, or individually wrapped).

Baked cookies can be successfully frozen for a month or more. Layer baked cookies in a Tupperware type container with parchment paper between layers of cookies. Thaw cookies at room temperature before decorating. I do not recommend freezing the cookies after they've been decorated.

Nutrition