Beautifully designed rainbow sugar cookies for any special occasion! We have a delicious recipe for your cookies and the perfect decorative royal icing to go along with it!
This post is all about rainbow sugar cookies. We have recipes for both cookies and royal icing.
These bright rainbow sugar cookies will bring joy to any birthday party! They are beautiful and bright, and will be a big hit for any birthdays!
Red, yellow, orange and blue are the primary colours for these cookies and it is gender neutral for any girl or boy's birthday party! They are fun to make and super delicious to eat. Whether you place them as a decorated dessert on the table or as a gift in a plastic bag, people will love them!
Why You Will Love This Rainbow Sugar Cookies
- no plastic gifts - these beautiful cookies are great as gifts. If you're a plastic-conscious mother and want to cut plastic usage at your party, these sugar cookies as gifts are a great idea!
- tastes good - they are crunch but also soft sugar cookies! We are using real butter and vanilla extract to get some bold and delicious flavours.
- easy to decorate - we got some great tips and ideas on how to get the perfect sugar cookies and how to decorate them like a pro!
- so pretty - these cookies are gorgeous to look at and the colour makes them very gender neutral.
Why Make Them?
First, I want to say that we are losing our creative selves to the convenience of buying things now. I think giving people handmade desserts is a habit we should not lose! These cookies are great gifts to showcase your creativity, craft and thoughtfulness.
Second, the recipe I have is the best-tasting sugar cookies! We are using real butter and vanilla extract to get great-tasting cookies!
Realistically, how long does it take to make pretty sugar cookies?
Okay, so I am not going to lie, but it does require some commitment and time. A couple of things to consider before you get to the fun part which is decorating the cookie:
1. You have to chill the dough
2. Bake the cookie and then let it cool
3. Make the royal icing and individually colour them and slip them all in separate pipping bags.
Each above mentioned steps requires at least one hour of preparation.
HOWEVER! I have to say is that once you get over these three steps, it gets fun and exciting after that.
How I organize my days
Normally I start preparing my dough 2 days prior to the event.
For example, say the party is on a Sunday. Friday night I am making the dough, and chill it overnight. Saturday afternoon, I am baking them and then at night I decorate them when the house is quiet and the kids are asleep! By Sunday, I am just packaging them into plastic bags.
You don't need therapy if you know how to decorate sugar cookies
Decorating sugar cookies is my mental therapy. If you like adult colouring books, sewing, or even beading, you will for sure love decorating sugar cookies. It's therapeutic work.
Decorating sugar cookies has the ability to relax the fear center of your brain, the amygdala. It induces the same state as meditating by reducing the thoughts of a restless mind. This generates mindfulness and quietness, which allows your mind to get some rest after a long day at work.
I decorate my sugar cookies when the kids are asleep and the house is nice and quiet. I burn a nice-smelling candle with a cup of tea, and off I go into my meditation state. I truly get some good rest after decorating my sugar cookies.
Sugar Cookie Recipe
My favourite homemade sugar cookie recipe I've been using for over 10 years! I've used it countless times and it's for a good reason! The flavour is on point, and the texture is flaky good. It holds design very well, and stores really well too. Make the best Homemade Halloween Cookies with this recipe!
The colour I use for my icing is the AmeriColor Food Colouring Student Kit 12 set. The bottles are small but it is super concentrated and a little drop goes a long way!
Royal Icing And Flooding Icing: What's The Difference?
If you're making very simple cookies with tiny toddlers, using only the royal icing is good enough. Especially with kids, flood icing isn't necessary for children 7 and under, unless there's an adult to guide them through it.
Royal icing is the outline for the cookies. It is thicker and more concentrated so where ever you pipe on the cookie, it will stay exactly there.
Flood icing (as you can tell from the name) is that it is more liquid form and it will spread around the cookie. When we use the flood icing, we need the outline of the cookie first to trap the flood icing. The benefit of flood icing is that it spreads an area more quickly and the texture is smoother looking (when it is spread on a large area).
Professional Tips
Pro Tip#1 - Cook The Rainbow Sugar Cookies Until Slightly Brown
Once the homemade cookies show a slight brown surface, it is done. Don't all the edges to go all brown because the cookies will be too hard. Since the sugar cookies are left out for a long time to decorate and dry, we don't want to over-cook the cookies.
Pro Tip #2 - Flip The Homemade Sugar Cookies Upside Down Once They Are Out Of The Oven
We flip the homemade cookies once they are out of the oven so it is still adjustable. we flip it upside down so it guarantees a flatter surface when we decorate the homemade cookies. A curved surface causes the icing to run down.
The cooling rack we use is Stainless Steel Cooling Rack for Baking with Lifting Handle.
Pro Tip #3 - Let The Cookie Dough Cool In The Fridge
When the cookie dough is on the colder end, it helps us get sharper and define the edge around the cookies. a warmer dough will cause the end to round around, with no sharp edges.
Remember when you combine the ingredients together, round the dough up in a flat disk. Do not place your dough in a ball when you put it in the fridge. Disk shape helps you roll out the dough better with fewer chances of crack edges.
Pro Tip #4- Cut The Tip Of The Pipping Plastic Small
I like to start off thin and move myself up to something thicker. Thinner ends for icing gives you more control on the details of the design and decoration.
Pro Tip #5 - Mix And Colour Your Icing In A Bowl
Once you know the colours you need, separated them into a smaller bowl. Colour the icing in their own separate bowls. Mix with a spatula until the colour is consistent and smooth.
Pro Tip #6: Decorate The Sugar Cookies When It Is Completely Cooled!
I've made this mistake before and it's the most frustrating one! I know it's going to take patience, but only start decorating once the cookie is completely cool. When icing is applied to a semi-warm sugar cookie, the icing will melt all over the cookie and becomes a hot mess!
Decorate Sugar Cookies
Equipment
- stand mixer
- large bowl
- spatula
- small spoons
- freezer quality ziplock bags
- elastic bands
Ingredients
Sugar Cookies
- 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks) cubed cold
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 cups all purpose flour you might need 4 cups
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp salt
Royal Icing
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 4 tbsp meringue powder
- 4 tbsp water warm
- 2 tsp vanilla extract clear colour extract
- 1 tsp almond extract cleared colour extract
Instructions
Sugar Cookies
- In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Flatten the dough into a 2 inch disk. Do not chill the dough in a ball. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).Â
- 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.Â
- Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. or until the rims of the cookie give a slight brown colour. Cool completely.
Royal Icing
- In a large bowl, add the powdered sugar and meringue powder and mix together. Using an electric mixer on low speed, add in the extracts and water (1 tablespoon at a time) and mix until smooth.
- If you're planning to color the icing, this is the stage where you should mix that in. If making multiple colors, divide the icing into smaller bowls and place a damp paper towel over the bowls you don't plan to use first.
- The goal with the royal icing is that it's thick enough that it won't run off the side of the cookie, but thin enough that it will meld together. So how do you know when that is? Well, you use a method called "15 second icing". This means that when you run a knife through the icing, the icing should go back to how it was within 15 seconds.
- Keep any icing that isn’t being immediately used covered with plastic wrap as it dries out very quickly. Transfer to piping bags and decorate cookies.
Flood Icing
- Take the desire colour of the royal icing in a bowl. Add a few drops of water to the bowl. Mix vigorously until smooth and with the consistency you like. Transfer to a pipping bag and carefully flood the cookies along the perimeter of the cookie outlined with the royal icing.
Notes
- If your icing has started to harden, add a drop or two of water to bring it back to your desired consistency so it doesn’t clog your piping tips. However, avoid making the icing too thin as it’ll lead to air bubbles which is not good for cookie decorating.
- When using royal icing to decorate cookies, pipe the outline icing first, then flood it. Outlining means piping a thin outline of the cookie with thicker icing and flooding means filling the middle with thinner icing. Piping an outline first keeps the icing from sliding off the cookies.
- Add a few drops of water to the icing and stir with a spatula for a flooding consistency. Continue adding water until you achieve the desired icing consistency.
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