A very important event is coming up, y’all. And I’m not talking about a Halloween party. The Georgia-Florida game is Saturday: the epic battle of good vs. evil, sundresses vs. jean shorts. Clearly we’re going to need some cookies.
I got these cookie cutters from Williams-Sonoma — the set comes with three cutters and a bag of letters so you can write your own messages. “Gators wear jean shorts” wouldn’t fit, though. I checked.
Normally I would only bake Georgia cookies. But I owed a friend of mine some Team America-themed cookies. And that friend is…. a Gator. (He has a photo of himself wearing jean shorts on the sidelines of a Florida game. Seriously. But it was the mid-90s, so we will excuse it). Anyway, I decided to go ahead and combine my cookie-baking efforts and bake these along with the profane cookies. But I figured I should make cookies for both teams.
To decorate, I outlined the cookies in colored royal icing (recipe below). Then, after all the cookies were outlined, I thinned some of the colored icing (use the same icing — otherwise you’ll never be able to match the colors). Working a cookie or two at a time, I put a glob of the thinned icing in the center of the cookies and used a paintbrush thing to push/spread the icing around the cookie. I have been trying to cover the outlines recently, because my outlines don’t always look great. And I saw it on Barefoot Contessa.
You’ll have to save some of the original white, black and blue royal icing you used for outlining. I had it in disposable pastry bags with rubber bands tied at the end and covers on the piping tip, but you can also put a tiny amount of water in a cup and put the tips down into that so the icing doesn’t dry out. But you really don’t need a lot.
It’s best if you wait for the flood icing to dry (or get close to dry) before you put the details on with the firmer outlining icing.
We haven’t been playing very well this year, so I am a bit worried about the game. But that won’t stop me from wearing my red and black Saturday. In fact, I will be watching the game with my friend Dena (the two of us put a serious hurt on Athens’ smoothie population back in the day).
Make your own:
I used this recipe for the sugar cookies. To get them to hold their shape better, I stuck the cookie sheets (with the unbaked cookies on them) in the freezer for about 5 minutes before baking.
Royal icing
1 pound powdered sugar
4 teaspoons powdered egg whites (not reconstituted)
1/3 cup water
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
Food coloring gel
Beat ingredients (except food coloring) together in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until just combined. Then increase speed to high and beat icing, scraping down sides of bowl occasionally, until icing holds stiff peaks (this will take about 3 minutes in a stand mixer or 10ish with a handheld). Mix in food coloring or separate into different bowls to color. (I used red, blue, orange, white and black icing for these cookies. You don’t need much white, though.)
To thin the icing for flooding/spreading: Add water about a teaspoon at a time to icing that is already the desired color. Stir after each addition, adding water until the icing is the consistency of maple syrup.