From the kitchen of Michele Ackerman, Editorial Editor and Website Coordinator
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword Cookies, Cow, Sugar Cookies
Prep Time 1 hourhour15 minutesminutes
Servings 3dozen cows or medium-sized cookies
Ingredients
Cookies
½cupButter
½cupShortening
½tbspWater
2Eggs
1cupSugar
1tspVanilla
1tspCream of tarter
¼tspSalt
3cupsFlour
Royal Icing
3tbspMeringue powder
4cupsPowdered sugar
5-6tbspWater
Instructions
Cookies
Preheat the oven to 350°.
In a large bowl, cream together butter, shortening and water. Add eggs, sugar and vanilla; mix well. Add cream of tartar, salt and flour and mix well.
Cover and chill dough in refrigerator at least 1 hour.
Roll dough with rolling pin on lightly floured board and cut into shapes.
Bake on ungreased cookie sheet in 350° oven until edges are lightly browned, about 10-12 minutes. If you'd like cookie edges a bit more browned, move cookie racks to top shelf of oven for last two minutes of baking.
Cool on wire racks. Frost and decorate with royal icing.
Royal Icing
In large bowl, combine meringue powder and powdered sugar until well-blended. Add enough water to make a frosting consistency; beat for 5-7 minutes. Thin royal icing with water to put it through decorating bags or flood cookies with a base coat of icing. A little water goes a long way with this icing, so add water very gradually (a few drops at a time) to achieve desired consistency. This royal icing is pure white and can be tinted with decorator food colors.
Notes
Cookies
I normally use this recipe, with half butter, half shortening, so cookies better hold their shape after baking. But if you'd like a richer, more dairy-dense cookies, use all butter and drop the 1/2 tablespoon of water.
Royal Icing
Royal icing is very stiff and dries very quickly. I usually cover my bowl with a damp towel topped with a heavy plate to keep the icing moist. As well, royal icing can clog icing tips in a heartbeat, so make sure you don’t leave tips exposed to the air for extended periods of time. There is a learning curve with royal icing, so make sure you bake a few extras cows to practice your craft. Practice makes perfect!
Decorating Tips
For these cows, I first made an outline around the cow and udder with black icing (royal icing thinned to consistency of thick honey) using a #2 tip. Then, I flooded the inside with brown icing (consistency of thinner honey) using a #4 tip. I let this dry (about 2-3 hours), then piped black icing on the tail and immediately sprinkled with black crystals. Finally, I piped a black icing eye, pink icing on the udder and brown icing for an ear. Some cows were garnished with red swirl roses made from stiff royal icing.
If you don’t have decorating bags and tips, you can use zip-close baggies with a small hole cut in one of the bottom corners for flooding and condiment bottles for outlines and details.