Marbled Icing Sugar Cookies Food

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.