By marian 36 Comments
Happy Friday!
I’ve got a new cookie recipe for you today – a slight variation on my sugar cookies – Brown Sugar Cookies. I used brown sugar instead of white granulated, and changed the amount of butter to make the dough a bit easier to work with. A lesser amount of butter also lessens the buttery flavour of the cookie, but the rustic brown sugar flavour makes up for it, in my humble opinion.
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You can find the recipe for the dough below.Thanks to the The Cookie Cutter Company for the duck cookie cutter!
Royal Icing
You can find my favoriteroyal icing recipe here. The consistency of icing is key for easy decorating.Click hereto see a YouTube video on finding the right icing thickness.
Decorating Steps
What you’ll need:
- Piping Tips #1.5
and #2 - Piping Bag
- Couplers
- Gel paste colors
Step One:
Outline the duck shape with royal icing. For detailed decorating tips,this tutorialmay be helpful for you.
Step Two:
With the same icing, flood, or fill in your shape.
Step Three:
Shake the cookie gently to help the icing settle.
Let the base dry for at least a few hours.
Step Four:
Add the beak by outlining and filling in right away.
Step Five:
Add a small black dot of icing for the eye.
Step Six:
Using a #1.5
tip or size tip of your choice, pipe a bow at the duck’s neck.Let the beak, eye and bow dry for a minimum of 6-12 hours before packaging.
Other Options:
I asked you on Facebook and Instagram which bow you liked better, and it was actually split between a piped bow and the real bow (below). Thought I’d share the options for you to decide if you make them.
Another variation is to add marbled wings:
If you’d like a marbling tutorial {video} you can find it here.
One note about the recipe I’d like to mention… the next time I make these, I will might make sure my lumps are out of my brown sugar, as you can still see a few of them in the cookies. Not a huge deal (hence the “might”), as the icing covers them, but thought I’d mention it in case you don’t want to see little brown sugar spots in yours.
If you have any questions or comments, please drop me a line below or on Facebook, Pinterest, or Google+.
Happy decorating!
xo,
Marian
Print Recipe
Brown Sugar Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 cups brown sugar, lightly packed
- 2 large eggs
- 3 tsp vanilla extract
- 5 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp salt
Instructions
Cream the butter and brown sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer on low to medium speed. (Use the paddle attachment). Mix until thoroughly incorporated - for about one minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a plastic spatula and mix again for a few seconds more. Over mixing the butter and sugar in this step will cause too much air to be incorporated into the dough. If you'd like a light and fluffy cookie, that's ideal, however the dough will spread more during baking; not ideal if you'd like the cookie to hold its shape.
Add eggs slowly and mix. Scrape down the bowl with your spatula at least once and mix again.
Add vanilla to mixing bowl. Stir briefly.
Sift your dry ingredients together. (Flour and salt).
Add all of the flour mixture to the bowl. Place a large tea towel or two small tea towels between the edge of the bowl and the electric mixer so that the flour won't escape. Mix on low speed for 30 seconds. Remove the tea towels and observe the dough mixing; when it clumps around the paddle attachment it's ready. It's also important at this stage not to over mix the dough (the glutens in the flour develop and the dough can become tough).
Roll the dough out between 2 large pieces of parchment paper. Place on a baking sheet and into the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour.
Roll out the dough further if you need to, and cut out cookie shapes. Place on parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Re-roll scraps and repeat.
Put cookie dough shapes back into the fridge for 10 minutes to 1 hour to chill again.They will then hold their shape better when baked.
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 176°C.
Bake cookies for 8-12 minutes or until the edges become golden brown. The baking time will depend on the size of your cookie.
Let cookies cool to room temperature and decorate!
