MAKE IT CUTE

Cookie ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 large egg

2 tsp vanilla

Plus black gel icing for the lines on the basketball or food coloring to make your own black icing

Icing ingredients:

1 lb powdered sugar

3 tbs meringue powder or 2 ¼ tsp powdered egg whites

6 tbs warm water

A squeeze of lemon juice

Orange gel food coloring

Directions:

1. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.

2. In a mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Mix in egg and vanilla, then add the flour cup-by-cup.

3. Spit the dough into two parts. Form each into a brick. Sandwich each brick between two sheets of wax paper, then roll into a sheet.

4. Refrigerate dough for 20 minutes before using circle-shaped cookie cutters to create the appropriate shape. Roll out dough scraps for another sheet of cookies.

5. Bake cookies for about 14 minutes at 350 degrees F., or until the edges are golden. Transfer to racks to cool.

6. While you wait, make the icing: Place all icing ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the paddle attachments, mix on low speed until ingredients form a paste, then mix on high speed for several minutes until the icing peaks. See images on the blog here. Add food coloring drop by drop and stir until the desired color is consistent. Use the link above to an icing tutorial to decorate your cookies. You want to pipe an orange border, then flood the center of the cookie with orange icing. See the-craft-penguin.com for step-by-step photos.

7. Let the cookies dry overnight with just the orange icing.

8. Pipe black lines using your black icing.

by Carolyn of the-crafty-penguin.com | 2/1/2016