Description
Christmas Lights Sugar Cookies are soft, classic sugar cookies decorated with colorful royal icing to resemble festive Christmas tree lights. The buttery cookies are cut into shapes, outlined and flooded with royal icing, then finished with colorful decorations.
Ingredients
For the Sugar Cookies
- 6 cups all-purpose flour (2 pounds)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 4 sticks unsalted butter (1 pound), at room temperature
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
For the Royal Icing
- 16 ounces powdered sugar (1 pound)
- 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon meringue powder
- 1/3 cup water, plus more as needed
- Food coloring (gel food coloring recommended)
Instructions
For the Cookies
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt until combined and any lumps are removed. Set aside. Measuring the flour with a kitchen scale is the most accurate method.
- In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer for 3 minutes. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and beat for another minute.
- With the mixer on low speed, gradually add the flour mixture. Blend until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl.
- Transfer the dough to a large piece of parchment paper. Knead by hand for a few minutes, then divide into two sections and wrap each in parchment paper. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes.
- Place another piece of parchment paper over the dough and roll with a rolling pin until it is between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick. Cut into shapes and remove the excess dough. Leave the cutouts in place and transfer the parchment to a cookie sheet.
- Bake for 10–13 minutes, or until the edges are slightly golden brown. Let the cookies cool completely before decorating. Alternatively, freeze the cooled cookies undecorated for several months.
For the Royal Icing
- Place the powdered sugar, meringue powder, and 1/3 cup water in a large bowl. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed for 6 minutes. The icing will be very thick and fluffy.
- Add 4–5 tablespoons of water and mix to combine. This creates medium-consistency icing, which should have a toothpaste-like texture.
- Transfer half of the icing to another bowl. Add another 1–2 tablespoons of water to this portion to create flood consistency. It should run off a spoon like white school glue.
- Divide and color the icing as desired. Place the medium-consistency icing in a piping bag with a small opening and pipe an outline around the edges of each cookie.
- Fill the outlined cookies with flood-consistency icing. A plastic squeeze bottle or piping bag can be used to distribute the icing.
- Allow the icing to dry for about 1 hour, then add decorations using the medium-consistency icing.
Notes
- Yield: Makes about 20 cookies, approximately 3 inches each.
- Chilling the dough: Refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes before rolling to make it easier to handle.
- Rolling thickness: Roll the dough between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick.
- Cookie storage: Cooled, undecorated cookies can be frozen for several months before decorating.
- Icing consistency: Medium icing should resemble toothpaste and is used for outlining and details. Flood icing should flow like white school glue and is used to fill the cookie centers.
- Water adjustments: Add water gradually to reach the desired icing consistency.
- Nutrition note: The original recipe notes that the calorie count is not entirely accurate because quite a bit of royal icing may be left over. The nutrition values represent the total recipe ingredients.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 13 minutes
- Category: Cookies, Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American