American Baker in Germany

Just in time for Pride Month, I'm making pride themed cookies. These are vanilla cookie cutouts decorated with royal icing. Pride Cookies: Vanilla Cookie Cut-outs: 3 cups (375g) flour 1/4 tsp salt 1/4 tsp baking soda 1 cup (250g) butter 1 cup (200g) sugar 1 egg 1 tsp vanilla extract or 1 tbsp vanilla sugar Royal Icing: 2 egg whites 350-450g (about 3-4 cups) of powdered sugar A few drops of water (if necessary)  Rainbow food coloring In a large mixing bowl, cream butter, sugar, egg and vanilla together.  Beat in salt and baking soda.  Add flour. Dough will be thick.  Knead briefly to keep it sticking together. Roll out on a sheet of baking paper.  Cut out heart shapes.  Bake at 325°F or 160°C for about 10 minutes.  In a separate bowl, briefly whip the egg whites. Add powdered sugar slowly with a whisk until you reach the consistency you want.  Split into 6 bowls and color them all the colors of the rainbow.  Put them in separate pipi...

 I actually made these cookies last year. But here are my best tips on decorating Christmas cookies. Two essential elements to decorating Christmas cookies. Cookies and frosting. As a kid I always used buttercream. Turns out that doesn't always work that well. So, over time, I came to prefer royal icing. Royal icing is rather liquid and melds together when wet, but dries quite solid and dry. I works best to use them in piping bags without tips. You will only need the smallest of holes in the bag, so only snip a tiny hole. The cookies should be solid enough that you can pick them up. You can use any cutter you want. If you don't have any, you can freehand them, or follow paper templates. But most Christmas cutters are widely available and not too expensive. This first cookie is an example of one made all at once. If you cover wet royal icing with another color, the colors will meld together and the surface will be rather flat. First, I outlined the tree with green and filled in ...

This is an easy recipe. Only 3 ingredients. I have to mention a few things about royal icing, though. Why royal icing? Well, royal icing contains egg whites, which makes the icing harden as it sets. The longer it sets, the harder it gets. Why would you want your icing to do that? A couple reasons. First off, royal icing acts like an edible glue to stick things to your cake. Second, is that you can pipe decorations with stiff royal icing, let them harden, and pick them up to place them on the cake. Thinner or flooding royal icing is soft and you can cover your cookies with it to make a perfect-looking frosting job on cookies. Now, I have to mention that royal icing isn't known for its taste. It's not something I would go out of my way to eat. It's more for decoration than taste. So this recipe is not meant to frost a cake. It's meant to flood cookies or create decorations for a cake. Royal Icing: 2 egg whites 1/2 tsp cream of tartar 350-450g (about 3-4 cups)...