Cupcake Cookies

Have you ever had iced sugar cookies? There's something about them..besides the fact that they are utterly amazing! My husband, and children I nanny are addicted to them! I think Caleb, the coolest 5 year old I know, and my husband bugged me about them for a good 3 days. Are they done yet? When are you going to decorate them? When can I eat them..boys! Silly boys! They are pretty darn delicious. I'd like to make more thinking of them now. The only downfall is they are very time consuming, dough has to refrigerate, cookies have to cool down, then you flat ice, more rest time..then decorating, it's a few days process. Of course I always have to make them look beautiful and put much effort and time into them. I need to start collecting cookie cutters, so if you'd like to send some my way please do! I won't turn them down! :) I used Annie's sugar cookie dough over at Annies Eats..she has some great stuff over there! They were very good and the dough turned out perfectly.

Perfect Sugar Cookies
2 sticks unsalted butter at room temp
1 cup powdered sugar
1 large egg
2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, or vanilla bean, yum!
Lemon zest, I didn't use it because I didn't have it :(
2 1/2 cups AP flour, all purpose
1 tsp salt

Cream butter and sugar, until light and fluffy..this will take a few minutes. Beat in egg, vanilla, zest (if using) and salt. Mix in flour on low speed until incorporated. Form dough into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap, or place in ziploc bag. Refrigerate one to two hours or up to 24 hours. Once dough is chilled, roll it out onto a well floured work surface. I like to flour the top of the dough a bit too so it doesn't stick to the rolling pin. Roll a 1/4" thick. Cut cookies and place on a wax, or parchment lined pan. Bake 8-10 minutes (cookies will be slightly browned on the edges) in a 375 degree preheated oven. Cool cookies and ice with royal icing.

Royal Icing
4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 tbsp meringue powder, this can be found at JoAnn or Michaels in the cake aisle..maybe at your local grocer?
5tbsp water

Beat powdered sugar and meringue powder with water. You're going to want to beat for about 10 minutes until white and glossy. If you have never iced cookies before you might want to check out a tutorial. Thin icing is great for flooding the cookies as a base. If decorating them you want the icing to be thick. Check out some of these tutorials:  Steps to making the perfect sugar cookie, over at Sweetapolita and Decorating sugar cookies, video from youtube, you can check out many more videos or tutorials. Feel free to ask any questions!

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