Gold and Green St. Patrick's Day Sugar Cookies
Soft vanilla sugar cookies with green royal icing and sparkling gold sugar. This recipe uses an easy method for dipping the cookies in the icing, with no cookie decorating experience needed.
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Equipment
- Assorted Cookie Cutters
Ingredients
Cookies
- 1 recipe Vanilla Cutout Cookies
Icing
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 4 tsp meringue powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (or other flavor of extract)
- 3-4 tbsp water
- gel food coloring ("forest green", "electric green", "turquoise")
- assorted sprinkles and sparkling sugar
Instructions
Cookies
- Make the vanilla cookie dough and bake the cookies as instructed, using any size/shape of cookie cutters you like. (Tip: don't roll the dough any thinner than 1/4 inch. Thinner cookies are more difficult to dip into the icing.)
- Handle the baked cookies gently; let cool completely before decorating.
Icing
- In a bowl, combine the powdered sugar and meringue powder.
- Add the extract and 3 tbsp of water. Add the food coloring. (I used 1/2 tsp "forest green" + 2 drops "electric green" + 2 drops "turquoise".)
- Whisk the icing until smooth and drizzly, adding more water as needed, a teaspoon at a time. The icing is the right consistency when it drizzles off the spoon back into the bowl of icing and disappears within about 7 seconds (see the video in the recipe card).
Decorating
- Hold a cookie by its edge and dip the top of the cookie into the icing. Lightly shake off the excess, then turn the cookie upright, setting it back onto the baking sheet. The icing will settle and smooth out on top of the cookie within several seconds, but if you need to, you can use a toothpick to neaten or smooth out any uneven spots, or to pop any air bubbles.
- Let the icing set for about 30 seconds before adding sprinkles or sugar. If you do it too soon, the sprinkles will sink, but if you wait too long, the icing will crust over and the sugar won't stick.
- I recommend dipping 3-4 cookies at a time, and then decorating those cookies, before dipping more cookies. Keep the bowl of icing covered while you're decorating the iced cookies, so the surface doesn't crust over.
Video
Notes
Let the iced cookies dry at room temperature for several hours. Store in a single layer in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one week.
Baked, unfrosted cookies can be made in advance and frozen in an airtight container for up to 3-6 months.
The icing can be made up to three days in advance, stored in an airtight container at room temperature.
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