Cutout Sugar Cookies With Marbled Icing Recipes

MARBLED SUGAR COOKIES

Steps:

• In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
• In a stand mixer or with an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until it's lightened in color and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
• Add the egg, vanilla and vanilla bean and mix well. Scrape the bowl down as needed.
• Add the dry ingredients and mix just until the flour is incorporated and the dough comes together.
• Divide the dough into 2 halves and wrap each in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the discs for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.
• Lightly sprinkle your surface with flour. Once chilled, use a lightly floured rolling pin to roll out each dough disc into a ¼ inch thick circle. Use more flour as needed to keep the rolling pin from sticking.
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• Use cookie cutters to cut the dough into your desired shapes and re-roll the scraps into more ¼ inch thick discs to cut more cookies out until no scraps are remaining.
• Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheet 2-3 inches apart. Bake for 9-11 minutes until just starting to turn light golden brown. Cool on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
• In a medium bowl that is at least as wide as your largest cookie, combine powdered sugar, 3 tablespoons of milk and vanilla and stir until a thick icing forms. Add more milk by the tablespoon until you reach a thick consistency, about the consistency of glue. See the post for more consistency tips. Add more powdered sugar as needed if you've thinned out the icing too much.
• Place about 2 tablespoons each of icing into 2 small bowls and 1 tablespoon of icing into another small bowl. Set aside the larger bowl of white icing. Color the 2 bowls containing 2 tablespoons of icing each, starting with one drop of food coloring and adding more if needed until reaching your desired colors. Leave the 1 tablespoon of icing white and set aside.
• In the medium bowl with the white icing, drizzle a small amount of each colored icing into the white glaze and lightly swirl once with a toothpick (be careful to avoid swirling too much as you will lose the marble effect).
• Dip the top side of each cookie into the glaze, pushing into the glaze lightly and twisting slightly and then lifting up and drizzling off any excess. Place on a wire rack to dry and continue with the rest of the cookies. If the color wears off, drizzle a bit more of each color back into the white icing and swirl once with a toothpick. If you have too much color, dollop some of the reserved tablespoon of white icing over the colors and swirl again with a toothpick.
• Let the cookies dry on the cooling rack for at least an hour. If you want to store the cookies layered, then allow them to dry for 12-24 hours before layering and layer between wax paper or parchment paper. Store in an airtight container

MARBLED SUGAR COOKIE CUTOUTS

Steps:

• Heat oven to 375°F.
• In large bowl, mix cookie mix, flour, melted butter and egg with spoon until soft dough forms. Divide dough into 3 pieces. Place 2 pieces of dough into 2 small bowls. Tint 1 bowl green, 1 bowl red by stirring in food colors.
• On floured surface, drop scant tablespoons of each dough in random pattern to make large rectangle. Dough pieces should be just touching together.
• Push dough toward center on all sides to make 6x5-inch rectangle. Roll dough 1/4 inch thick to create marbled pattern. Cut with 3-inch cookie cutters. Lightly press back of cookie spatula in flour, and slide under cookie dough; place cutouts 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Press any leftover scraps together, and reroll on floured surface to make more cookies.
• Bake 6 to 8 minutes or until edges are light golden brown. Cool 2 minutes; remove from cookie sheets to cooling rack. Cool completely, about 15 minutes.

CUTOUT SUGAR COOKIES WITH MARBLED ICING

Steps:

• In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes).
• Add egg and vanilla until just combined.
• Gradually add flour (reserving about 3 tablespooons) and salt.
• Cover dough and refrigerate 1 hour.
• Preheat oven to 350°F and line baking sheets with parchment paper.
• Remove dough and roll on a floured surface to 1/4" thick. Using cookie cutters, cut into desired shapes.
• Transfer to baking sheet. Bake 10 minutes or until cookies have set. Allow to cool 1 minute before transferring to a cooling rack. Cool completely before icing.

SUGAR COOKIE CUTOUTS

Steps:

• Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl.
• Put butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy. Mix in eggs and vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Gradually mix in flour mixture. Divide dough in half; flatten each half into a disk. Wrap each in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour or overnight.
• Preheat oven to 325 degrees with racks in upper and lower thirds. Let one disk of dough stand at room temperature just until soft enough to roll, about 10 minutes. Roll out dough between two pieces of plastic wrap to 1/4 inch thick. Remove top layer of plastic wrap. Cut out cookies with a 4-inch one-piece-shaped cookie cutter. To make an ornament, cut out a hole from the center of the neck about 1/4-inch from the edge using a straw. Transfer cookie dough on plastic wrap to a baking sheet. Transfer baking sheet to freezer, freeze until very firm, about 15 minutes. Remove baking sheet from freezer and transfer shapes to baking sheets lined with nonstick baking mats. Roll out scraps, and repeat. Repeat with remaining disk of dough.
• Bake, switching positions of sheets and rotating halfway through, until edges turn golden, 15 to 18 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks.

SUGAR COOKIE ICING

Steps:

• In a small bowl, stir together confectioners' sugar and milk until smooth. Beat in corn syrup and almond extract until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick, add more corn syrup.
• Divide into separate bowls, and add food colorings to each to desired intensity. Dip cookies, or paint them with a brush.