Decorated Sugar Cookies - Daring Bakers September 2010

The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of “What the Fruitcake?!” Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.

The theme was September. Not too much happens for me in September, so I went with a theme that has been running through my life for the last couple of months and finally came to completion thisSeptember: Home.

Having recently moved to Sydney and having waited 3 months for our furniture to travel on the slow boat from San Francisco we finally just this month got all our stuff. It really was a momentous occasion to throw out the empty moving boxes that we were using as a dinner table (sad but true!). So what better way to make our new home feel more homely than to bake home theme homely cookies :)

I started this, my first Daring Bakers challenge, pretty gun ho with big ideas on how I could decorate my cookies. I was little prepared for how time consuming and labor intensive this challenge was going to be. Depending on how you decorate your cookies, they will take the good part of one whole day or a couple of part days to complete.

Here's what I learnt:

• Bigger cookies = more decorating space = easier to decorate, especially for writing I found sauce bottles much easier to use and less messy than piping bags, especially when doing a fine decoration. Although this is probably because my piping nozzles weren't small enough.
• If you are not already a skilled icing writer, practice practice and practice some more. Needless to say my bench ended up with home, ho and me's all over it.
• I made the plain sugar cookie recipe and another batch where I substituted some of the flour for cocoa. I much preferred the cocoa version.
• Decorating cookies is fun, so long as they turn out the way you want them to! Keep it simple. Stick with one design idea and perfect it, rather than trying to do too many different types.
• Cover your bowls of icing as soon as you make it and cover them when you're not using them. I learnt this one the hard way and ended up with some lumpy icing... not very nice!

Sugar Cookie Recipe

• 200g / 1/2 cup + 6 Tbsp Unsalted Butter, at room temperature
• 400g / 3 cups + 3 Tbsp All Purpose / Plain Flour* * for the cocoa version, substitute 2 Tbsp of the flour for cocoa powder
• 200g / 1 cup Caster Sugar / Superfine Sugar
• 1 Large Egg, lightly beaten
• 5ml / 1 tsp Vanilla Extract / Or seeds from 1 vanilla bean

1. Cream together the butter, sugar and any flavourings you’re using. Beat until just becoming creamy in texture. Don’t over mix otherwise you’ll incorporate too much air and the cookies will spread during baking, losing their shape.
2. Beat in the egg until well combined, make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl.
3. Add the sifted flour and mix on low until a non sticky dough forms.
4. Knead into a ball and divide into 2 or 3 pieces.
5. Roll out each portion between parchment paper to a thickness of about 5mm
6. Refrigerate for a minimum of 30 mins.
7. Once chilled, peel off parchment and place dough on a lightly floured surface.
8. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters or a sharp knife.
9. Arrange same sized cookies on lined baking trays (this is to ensure cookies are done cooking at the same time).
10. Refrigerate for another 30mins to an hour. It’s important to chill them again otherwise they’ll spread while baking.
11. Re-roll scraps and repeat the above process until all scraps are used up.
12. Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C Fan Assisted).
13. Bake until golden around the edges, about 8-15mins depending on the size of the cookies.
14. Leave to cool completely on cooling racks before decorating.
15. Cookies will last up to a month if wrapped in foil/glad wrap or kept in an airtight container.

Royal Icing Recipe

• 315g – 375g / 2 1/2 - 3 cups Icing Sugar, unsifted
• 2 Large Egg Whites
• 10ml / 2 tsp Lemon Juice
• 5ml / 1 tsp Almond Extract, optional

Ensure the bowls/spoons/spatulas and beaters you use are thoroughly cleaned and grease free.

1. Beat egg whites with lemon juice until combined.
2. Sift the icing sugar to remove lumps and add it to the egg whites. 2 amounts of icing sugar are listed. The lesser amount is good for a flooding consistency, the larger for outlining. For writing, add even more icing sugar for a thicker consistency.
3. If you add too much icing sugar or need a thinner consistency:
   • if you are planning on using liquid food colouring (instead of paste or gel colouring) the liquid colouring will thin out the consistency
   • if you not adding liquid food colouring or if the consistency is still too thick, add very small amounts of water, a few drops at a time until you reach the consistency you need.
4. Stir or beat on low until combined and smooth.
5. Use immediately or keep in an airtight container. The icing will start to harden as soon as it's in contact with air so make sure to cover containers with a damp cloth or plastic wrap while not in use.

Decorating (the 'fun' part)

What You'll Need:

• Piping bags and/or squeezy sauce bottles
• Elastic bands - to tie the end of your piping bags
• Piping tips - the smaller the better for cookies
• Couplers
• Glasses - handy for standing your piping bags in
• Clean tea towels, dry & damp
• Toothpicks
• Food colouring - I couldn't easily find gel or paste food colouring as the recipe suggests so I used liquid colouring instead.
• Dark chocolate, melted - I found melted chocolate easier to write with than the Royal Icing.

Colouring

1. Separate the Royal Icing into different bowls, one for each colour you want to use.
2. Immediately cover the bowls with plastic wrap or damp cloths to ensure the icing doesn't harden.
3. Drop by drop add your desired food colouring. Mix and check the colour before adding more. You can always add more later but you won't be able to take it out once it's in there.
4. Do the 10 second test: drag a knife through the icing. If the icing smoothes itself out within 5 - 10 seconds then you have the right consistency.
5. If your icing is too thick then thin it out by adding the liquid food colouring. If not colouring or using gel or paste colouring, thin it out by adding a few drops of water. Mix, do the 10 second test again and repeat until you have the right consistency.
6. If your icing is too thin, add small amounts of sifted icing sugar until it's thick enough to pass the 10 second test.
7. Cover the bowls again

Prepping Piping Bags

1. Attach the icing tips to the icing bags (with couplers if using)
2. Stand the icing bags upside down in a glass with the ends of the bags folded around the top of the glass
3. Fill the bags with each colour of icing
4. Tie the end of the bag with an elastic band
5. Prepping Squeezy Bottles
6. Take the lid off the bottle and fill the bottle with one icing colour
7. Screw the lid back on
8. Stand upside down in a glass so the icing drops goes to the tip of the bottle

Flooding

Flooding a cookie is a technique used when covering a cookie with Royal Icing. You outline the area you want to flood then simply fill or flood the area you've outlined.

The Daring Bakers recipe outlined 2 methods for flooding; the same consistency method and the 2 consistency method. The 2 consistency method involves making 2 batches of Royal Icing; one for the outline and one for the flooding. As it was easier to make just one batch, I stuck with the same consistency method.

1. Hold the piping bag at a 45 degree angle above the cookie where you want to start the outline.
2. Gently squeeze the piping bag and start moving in the direction you want to outline the cookie.
3. Start lifting the piping bag away from the cookie so that the flow of icing falls onto the cookie, making it an even and neater outline.
4. As you start to reach the beginning of the outline, bring the piping tip closer to the surface of the cookie to meet the start of the icing outline
5. Fit the piping bag with a bigger tip (to fill the inside of the outline)
6. Quickly zig zag back and forth over the area inside the outline. You need to be quick so don't worry if it's not filled in neatly
7. Use a toothpick to push icing into remaining gaps in the icing.

Melding Colours into the flooding

If you would like to add lines or dots to the base colour that you flooded the cookie with so that they meld and dry as a smooth surface, you need to add the lines/dots/patterns as quickly as possible after flooding and smoothing the surface of the cookie.

1. Pipe other colours onto the flooded surface in patterns or lines which you can either leave as that or then drag a toothpick through to make marbling patterns.

Lame-o first attempts

Writing/Decorating on top of flooding

If you’d like to do other patterns/outlines or writing on top of the flooded surface so that they are raised above the flooded background, then allow the icing to dry, preferably over night.

1. If using icing to write, the consistency should be much thicker. Drag a knife through your icing and when the surface smoothes around 12-15 seconds, the consistency is correct.
2. I found it easier to write with melted chocolate as it had a finer consistency. Although I'm sure if I had a smaller piping nozzle I could have achieved the same effect with icing.
3. Pipe patters or write on top of the dry icing.