Colored Sanding Sugar For Cookie Cupcake Decorating Recipes

DIY COLORED SUGAR

Steps:

• In a small resealable plastic bag, combine sugar and a few drops of food coloring. Seal bag and shake to tint the sugar. Allow sugar to dry on flat surface for 15-20 minutes before using.

COLORED SUGAR

Steps:

• Place sugar into a jar with a tight fitting lid. Drip the food coloring onto the sugar, close the lid, and shake vigorously for about 1 minute. Adjust color with additional food coloring and repeat if the color is too light.

THE BEST SUGAR COOKIES FOR DECORATING

Steps:

• For the dough: Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Beat together the egg and vanilla in a small bowl.
• Beat the butter, granulated sugar and confectioners' sugar together in a large bowl with an electric mixer on low speed. Once incorporated, increase the speed to medium and beat until slightly creamy, about 3 minutes. Stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
• Reduce the speed to low again and slowly pour in the egg mixture and beat until combined. Add the flour mixture, in 3 additions, increasing the speed as the dough gets thicker to keep the beaters spinning. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and the beaters as needed. Once all the flour is just incorporated, increase the speed to medium-high and beat until the dough is very smooth, about 5 minutes.
• Turn the dough out of the bowl and bring it together. Divide into 2 even pieces. Shape each piece into a flat square and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for at least 3 hours or overnight.
• To roll, cut and bake the cookies: Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
• Dust another sheet of parchment paper with flour and put 1 piece of the dough on top. Dust with more flour and top with another sheet of parchment. Roll the dough out between the parchment sheets into a square about 1/4-inch thick (about 11-by-9 inches) and place in the freezer for 5 minutes. Repeat with the remaining piece of dough.
• From 1 piece of rolled dough, cut out cookies with a 2 1/2-inch cutter and arrange on the prepared baking sheets, about 2 inches apart. Refrigerate while you cut the remaining cookies. Reroll any scraps of dough and repeat the freezing, cutting and refrigerating process until all the dough is used.
• Bake, rotating the baking sheets front to back and bottom to top about halfway through, until golden brown around the edges, about 12 minutes. Let cool completely on the baking sheets set on a wire cooling rack, about 30 minutes.
• Meanwhile, make the royal icing: Combine the confectioners' sugar and meringue powder in a large bowl. Add 3 tablespoons water and the vanilla and beat with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until the icing forms thick and glossy peaks, about 2 minutes (adding up to 1 tablespoon more water, if needed). Tint with a few drops of food coloring as desired.
• Fit a pastry bag with a small round tip and fill it with the icing.
• Pipe royal icing on cookies with the design of your liking and let dry for 30 minutes.

COLORED SANDING SUGAR FOR COOKIE & CUPCAKE DECORATING

Steps:

• If using the GEL METHOD:.
• Put the sugar into a bowl.
• On a spoon, put a little dab of the color(s) you want to use. A little goes a long way; gel colors stain much more deeply than liquid.
• With a toothpick or the tines of a fork, mix the dab with a few drops of water-- no more than 4-5 drops of so. Be really careful with this step because if there's too little water, it won't diffuse enough. Too much water and the color won't stick. I like using a medicine dropper for this.
• Carefully stir the spoon into the bowl of sugar, mixing thoroughly.
• Shake the bowl occasionally to properly disperse the coloring.
• Let the bowl of sugar sit in a safe area that is cool and dry for at least 10 minutes so the color can dry.
• If using the LIQUID METHOD:.
• How many drops you use determine how deep you'd like the color to be or how many are required to get a certain hue. About 4-5 are medium shade depending on which one you use, ie you only need about 2 or 3 of red to get pink but about 8-10 for red.
• Put the drops on a spoon, and mix thoroughly through the bowl of corase sugar.
• Shake the bowl a few times to disperse all the dye. If it looks like "spotting", add another 2-3 drops of coloring to the spoon and mix again.
• When you are satisfied with the color, let the bowl sit in a cool dry area for about 5-10 minutes to let the color seep in and dry.
• FUN TIPS:.
• For rainbow sugar using the liquid dyes, don't put the dye on the spoon. Randomly put a few drops in the bowl and quickly stir it up, careful not to blend the colors together.
• Put the sugar into separate bowls to get different colors instead of having to buy a whole container of colored sugar if you only want just a little bit.

COLORED SUGAR

Steps:

• Place sugar on waxed paper.
• Add one drop of food color, work in with your fingertips.
• Repeat step 2 until you reach the color you want.