Fall Cookies

I was on my way to the grocery store today and while I was stopped at a light I glanced over and noticed there was a tree with leaves that were starting to change. I felt a tinge of sadness that Summer is ending and the weather is just beginning to get ever so slightly cooler but I also felt a bit excited that the trees are going to start having leaves in beautiful shades of red and orange. This inspired me to take a stab at decorating some cookies.

I bought these fall leaf and acorn cookies about a month ago while I was impulse shopping at Michael's. I wasn't planning to use them until October but when you get inspired you have to roll with it right. I was little nervous since this is my first time working with royal icing. I'm a food blog junky so I've seen tons of decorated cookies that I just love and have always been too intimidated to try this myself. After doing a lot of research on how to decorate using royal icing, I finally bit the bullet and went for it. I think these are just ok for a first timer. I just need to practice, practice, practice so that maybe I can send cookies to friends at Christmas.

Now lets get down to the important stuff, the taste. I really liked this recipe. When you bite into it's soft and chewy which is one of the main things I look for in a cookie. I'm definitely more of a soft chewy girl than a crisp crunchy girl. After noticing the texture, I immediately took note of the nice lemon flavor from the zest and then you're hit at the end with this awesome almond flavor that really finishes it beautifully. Overall, I give this recipe two big beefy fingered thumbs up.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups Flour, all-purpose

1 tsp Baking powder

1 egg

1/2 tsp Vanilla extract

1/4 tsp almond extract

2 sticks Butter, room temperature

1/2 tsp Salt

1 cup Sugar

1/4 tsp Lemon zest

Directions:

In a medium bowl, mix the flour and baking powder. Lightly beat the egg with the vanilla and almond extracts.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and salt on medium until smooth. With the mixer running, slowly pour in the sugar then add the lemon zest. Beat on medium until fluffy. With the mixer running, pour in the egg mixture and continue beating until combined. With the mixer on low, slowly add the flour and mix until incorporated.

Lightly knead the dough to form a ball and press into a disk. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat and preheat the over to 375 degrees. If you chilled your dough overnight, it will need to sit at room temperature for about half an hour to slightly soften. On a very lightly floured sheet of wax paper (I used my pastry mat) with a sheet of plastic wrap on top of the dough, roll the dough out to about 1/4-inch thick. Cut dough with floured cookie cutters. Reroll the scraps and use that too. Thou shall not waste cookie dough is the 11th commandment.

Bake the cookies for 5-9 minutes, depending on the size of the cookies, until they no longer look wet on top. Try not to let the bottoms brown, except for a little around the edges. Let the cookies rest for a couple of minutes before placing them on the cooling racks. If you move them too fast they will break. Trust me on this one.

Decorate as desired. I used royal icing to decorate these cookies.

Royal icing:

4 cups Powdered Sugar

2 tbsp Meringue Powder

5 tbsp Water

Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer. Beat on low until the sheen has disappeared and it looks a bit dull. Transfer to airtight containers. This is the consistency you will need to outline your cookies. Mix in a bit of coloring gel to the icing and put what you need into piping bags. Pipe the outline on each cookie and let the icing set. I left mine for about an hour.

Now add water to the icing left in the bowl, a teaspoon at a time until it reaches the consistency of syrup. Now flood the cookies using a squeeze bottle and a toothpick to get it to the edges.

Adapted from: The Way the Cookie Crumbles (cookies); Annie's Eats (royal icing)