Description
Make beautiful Iced Heart Shaped Cookies. This recipe provides instructions for baking the cookies and preparing the royal icing.
Ingredients
Scale
- 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp Kosher salt
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2 & 3/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1 large egg white, or 2 & 1/2 tbsp meringue powder
- Gel food color (optional)
- Sprinkles
Instructions
- In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Beat butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla.
- Reduce speed to low and gradually add flour mixture; beat until combined.
- Divide dough in half; flatten into disks. Wrap each in plastic and freeze until firm, about 20 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 325°F. Line 2 rimmed baking sheets with parchment.
- Remove 1 disk of dough; let stand 5 to 10 minutes. Roll out 1/4-inch thick between two sheets of floured parchment, dusting with flour as needed.
- Cut shapes with 2 & 1/2-inch heart-shaped cookie cutters. Using a spatula, transfer to prepared baking sheets. Re-roll scraps and cut more shapes. Repeat with remaining disk of dough.
- Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through, until edges are golden, about 12 minutes. Let cool completely on wire racks. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container up to 1 week.
- In the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine confectioners’ sugar and egg white on low speed.
- Add a scant 1/4 cup water, then increase speed to medium-high and mix until icing holds a ribbon-like trail on surface for 3 seconds when you raise paddle, about 10 minutes.
- Reduce speed to low and mix 1 minute more to eliminate air bubbles. If icing is too thick, add more water, 1 tablespoon at a time. If icing is too thin, add more confectioner’s sugar, 1-2 tablespoons at a time.
- Dip the top side of each cooled cookie into the royal icing. Tilt the cookie so that excess icing drips off back into the bowl.
- Place the iced cookie on a rack set inside a baking pan or over aluminum foil. If you are using sprinkles, spread over the top of the iced cookies now. If you are making the paint-stroke cookies, let cookies sit until the icing is hard, at least 2 hours.
- Use a few drops of pink gel coloring in a small bowl of water to color the water to the depth that you prefer.
- Using a paint brush, dip the brush in the pink water and then “paint” over the cookies.
- For the cookies that I am featuring, I set the iced cookies in alternate positions next to each other. I then dragged the brush on a diagonal across the cookies. Repeat that until the cookies are painted. Let sit until dry.
Notes
- Cookies can be stored in an airtight container up to 1 week.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 150
- Sugar: 20g
- Sodium: 50mg
- Fat: 7g
- Saturated Fat: 4g
- Unsaturated Fat: 2g
- Trans Fat: 0g
- Carbohydrates: 22g
- Fiber: 0g
- Protein: 1g
- Cholesterol: 20mg