Le Finis Sugar Cookie with Royal Icing
At Le Finis chef Terry Doel creates snowflakes, Eiffel Towers and more using a simple cookie recipe.
Cookies were the first thing Le Finis chef Terry Doel was allowed to bake when she was a kid. Try these out and we’re pretty sure you’ll win at the cookie exchange – even if your icing piping skills aren’t Terry-level. These are about 3 inches wide, but the recipe can be used with any sized cutter. Makes 24 to 36 cookies, depending on size.
Le Finis Sugar Cookie with Royal Icing
Ingredients
- 2 cups butter
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1½ cups icing sugar
- 4 egg yolks
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 2 tsp orange zest
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 4½ cups flour
- coloured sugar (optional)
- Royal Icing
- 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 2 tbsp meringue powder
- a few drops vanilla or extract of choice
- 3½ tbsp water
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Cream butter and sugars (not the coloured sugar) together with a mixer until light and fluffy. Mix in egg yolks, vanilla and zest until just combined.
- Sift together baking powder and flour. Add to wet mixture until well incorporated.
- Form into 3 balls and let chill 30 minutes.
- Roll out dough on a floured surface until ¼-inch thick. Cut out in desired shapes. (If you’d like to skip the royal icing stage, another option is to sprinkle the cookies with coloured sugar before baking.) Bake on a sheet pan with parchment paper for 8 to 12 minutes until just golden on the edges. Let cool.
- For the icing, put dry ingredients into mixer. Add extract to water and pour in while mixer is running.
- Once all water is in, turn mixer up to medium-high and run until icing is fluffy with stiff peaks. This may take 7 to 10 minutes.
- Using a piping bag pipe, create designs on cooled sugar cookies. Let set a few hours.
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