Easter Cookies

I made Easter egg shaped sugar cookies again this year, but with a little more experience. I also used a different sugar cookie recipe and made homemade icing.

Sugar Cookies Ingredients

• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
  
• 1 1/3 cups sugar
• 3 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 3 cups sifted flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 tablespoons milk

Directions
1. cream shortening, butter, sugar, and vanilla.
2. add eggs, beat well.
3. Sift flour, salt, and baking powder. Stir into creamed mixture along with milk.
4. chill overnight
5. roll onto floured board into 1/4" thickness and cut into desired shapes.
6. Place on greased cookie sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 5-7 minutes. This recipe made 2 1/2 dozen egg-shaped cookies.

White Icing
Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons meringue powder
• 4 cups (1 lb.) powdered sugar
• 6 tablespoons water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract (use clear if you want pure white icing)
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
  

Directions
Beat all ingredients together until stiff peaks form (8-10 minutes). To vary the consistency, add water to thin and add powdered sugar to thicken. Will ice 2 1/2 - 3 dozen cookies.

The cookies are pretty self-explanatory. It's the icing that gets complicated to use. Whenever I roll out the cookie dough, I always use a lot of flour, so that the dough does not get sticky and therefore hard to transfer to the cookie sheet.

To make the icing process a little easier, I covered my kitchen counter in wax paper and taped it down. This way I had plenty of room to spread out the cookies. After letting the cookies cool, I began the tedious process of icing them. As you can see in the below picture, I drew a border around the egg with a #3 icing tip. This can get frustrating, because sometimes the border is not straight or there are breaks in it. Just take your time and make sure it is a complete circle, otherwise when you ice the middle the icing will leak out. Also in this picture, there are eggs that are have already been filled-in with white icing. To do this, put a couple of scoops of icing in a small bowl or cup and gradually add small amounts of water to it until it is runny, constantly stirring it. Then transfer the icing to a plastic bag and cut a small hole in the corner of the bag. Squeeze the icing on to the cookies, making sure to stay in the lines. I squeeze some on about 5 cookies then take a tooth pick and spread it around evenly. I also use the tooth pick to pop some of the air bubbles that form. Let these dry for 1 hour before starting on the details.

Divide the rest of the original icing into bowls and put 2-3 drops of food coloring in each. I did pink, yellow, blue, and green. Then I used tip #5 to make the designs.

If you have any questions just leave it in the comment section!