By definition, a sugar cookie consists of sugar, flour, butter, eggs, vanilla, and, baking powder or baking soda. Sugar cookies may be formed by hand or rolled and cut into shapes. They are commonly decorated with frosting, sprinkles, or a combination of both. They can also be cut into decorative shapes and figures. In North America, sugar cookies are popular during the Christmas and Halloween time.
However, the modern incarnation of the authentic sugar cookie can be traced back to the mid 1700s in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. There, German Protestant settlers created the round, crumbly, buttery cookie that came to be known as the Nazareth Sugar Cookie. Sugar cookies probably derived from an earlier, unleavened cookie called a “jumble,” which is a biscuit that gained popularity in the 17th and 18th century in Europe mainly because as a non-leavened food, it could be dried and stored for many months.
The modern Nazareth-style sugar cookie has gained enormous popularity in America. Sometime in the 1930s it became a tradition for children to leave sugar cookies and milk out for Santa Clause on Christmas Eve. Because of how easy it is to cut and shape the sugar cookie dough, custom cookies have become wildly popular.
My niece made these sugar cookies for her son's fifth birthday. Her son wanted a birthday theme The Very Hungry Caterpillar. She and her son worked hard to create butterfly and caterpillar cookies to perfection. The end result made the kid a very happy boy. Adults who looked at these cookies were impressed by her baking, icing and artistic skills. I am very happy to share the recipe of sugar cookies and the royal icing here:
Ingredients (for cookies):
1 1/2 cups butter on room temperature, 2 cups white sugar, 4 eggs, 1tsp vanilla extract, 5 cups white flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt
Method (for cookies):
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.
Ingredients (for icing):
2 lbs confectioner’s sugar, 3/4 cup meringue powder(dry egg white powder), 1 1/2 cup warm water, 2 to 3 tbsp some extract or flavoring.
Method (for icing):
Add the dry ingredients first. Use your mixer’s whisk attachment to incorporate the sugar and meringue powder. Add the extract to the water and slowly add it to the dry ingredients while mixing. At first the icing will be very liquid-like.
Continue to mix it at medium to high speed until it is fluffy and stiff peaks form. It takes about 7-10 minutes. Mixing times vary as per your mixer or food processor. You can stop mixing as soon as it becomes stiff.
You can mix color in this stiff icing. Color choice and shape are purely individual decision.
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