Beauty and the Beast Cookies

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 sticks (1 cup) butter or margarine, room temperature
2 tsp. extract of your choice (I tend to use vanilla)
1 egg (room temperature)
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3(ish) cups flour

Royal icing, for decorating (the recipe I use here)

Directions:

Cream powdered sugar and butter until light and fluffy.  Add extract and egg; beat well.  Sprinkle baking powder and salt over mixture; mix well.  Add flour, a little at a time, until it forms a stiff dough that does not stick to your fingers.  Place on a floured surface and allow to rest for 15-20 minutes.  Roll out dough to 1/4 inch thickness.  Cut out shapes and “peel” dough scraps (more on this here).  Bake at 375 for roughly 15 minutes until set and bottoms of cookies are lightly golden.  Allow to cool on a baking rack before decorating with royal icing (more on how to make this here).

Now, in pictures! ?

As you probably know, if you’ve been on my site for any length of time, I adore decorating sugar cookies.  I went ahead and shared my go-to sugar cookie recipe, but you can feel free to substitute your own favorite sugar cookie dough, or even use store-bought cookie dough.  Roll out your dough and cut out your shapes (I used the square plaque cutter here— it’s an amazing cutter because it’s a pretty shape that can be used for many things and changed to be whatever you want it to be– in this case, magical fairytale cookies).  🙂

Bake your cookies and allow them to cool.  If you need help with the baking step, check out my much more detailed sugar cookie baking tutorial here.  The great part about these cookies is that I used only 1 color of icing– basic white.  So go ahead and prepare your basic 17 second white royal icing (more on how to make this here, if you’ve never worked with royal icing before).  I like to make the icing before I start the cookies, so that it will have a change to let all the air bubbles rise to the top of the piping bag before I start decorating.  Yeah . . . no bubbles in my icing coat! 😀  When your cookies are cooled, outline your cookies and allow the outlines to dry for 5-10 minutes.

Letting your outlines dry prior to flooding the cookies helps to make sure that you won’t “overflow the dam” of icing when you flood. Floods are for Noah and the ark– not for cookies.  😉  I am using a #3 piping tip (like this one here) to outline and flood these cookies.

After you have flooded your cookies, allow them to dry, uncovered, overnight.  Royal icing is kind of deceptive– you might think it’s dry, but when you dry to decorate it might still be wet underneath and will collapse when you try to pipe or decorate on top.

To begin with, let’s talk stencils.  If you checked out my Vintage Pyrex cookies here, then you know that I am a huge proponent of Buttercup Love Designs, as the purchase of her stencils directly supports 8 year old Bridgette in her battle against childhood cancer.  The stencils I am using today are from her shop.

I find that it helps to hold my stencil in place if I put a cheapie paper plate overtop of a round metal baking pan and secure the stencil with magnets.  That way the plate protects from mess, and the magnets/pan hold my stencil in place.  Who says you can’t have an extra set of arms when you need them?  😉  Why, oh why can’t my magnets change a diaper?  *eye roll.

Now, let’s talk airbrush.  I have done a tutorial on how to stencil cookies without an airbrush, here, if you want to check it out.  But, in my humble opinion, absolutely nothing looks as professional on a cookie as stenciling using an airbrush system.  After extensive research (and personal experience), I highly recommend the Duff Airbrush system, here.  This set is extremely easy to use (I use Americolor airbrush colors), and it’s also easy to take apart and clean.  Unlike cheaper models that can jam up and need to be replaced, this one comes apart easily for cleaning and a “good as new!” feeling.

When airbrushing, it’s important not to super-saturate your cookies with color, all at once.  Use several light coats, allowing the color to dry in between.  That way your cookie can absorb it, and the color doesn’t bleed underneath the stencil.  See?  I told you that you’d be a pro at this.  You’re so smart.  I love working with you.

For this particular stencil, I did 3 light coats of black mist over the faces, but I left the rose blank.  When the black part dried, I went back and airbrushed the rose in red.  Because, I mean . . . Roses are Red.  Everyone knows that.

Ta-Dah!  Red rose.

I did the same type of technique for my Beauty and the Beast logo cookie– applied my stencil using magnets, and then did 3 light coats of black, allowing the color to dry slightly in between coats.  I finished with making the rose red after the black had dried.  “We’re painting the roses red!”  Or, painting the town red?  Hmm.  Both?  NOW you’re getting it! 😀

Once you have finished airbrushing your cookies, allow them to completely dry (I let them sit for at least 15/20 minutes before stacking).