Get Well Soon Sugar Cookies

Okay, let me try to catch up here. This month is going by so quickly. Since our trip to Maine, we went to Connecticut and attended a beautiful wedding. We were just as busy when we lived in Alaska, but we couldn't travel to different states just for a weekend!

In family news, my cousin is expecting! She took a year off with her husband to tour Australia while pregnant. What a brilliant idea. I'm going to have to start knitting baby things. I'm so excited. You know what else is great for babies, or baby showers? Sugar cookies! I saw these GORGEOUS sugar cookies yesterday and was just blown away. Especially now that I've tried making them once.

What gave me the idea was my father-in-law's unfortunate accident breaking his wrist. He had a good sense of humor about it and donned a Hulk glove on his cast after his surgery. So we sent him sugar cookies to wish him a speedy recovery!

The royal icing recipe I used is from The Joy of Baking. I love how she describes every baking process in detail. I chose to use the royal icing recipe with egg whites because I didn't have any meringue powder on hand. So I started with a bunch of gingerbread men using Holiday Sugar Cookie dough from flour. Chilled for half an hour, then baked at 350 degrees. The recipe says 15 minutes. My first batch was very brown. So it turns out 8 to 10 minutes is more reasonable.

Outlined with royal icing in piping consistency.

Then flooded with thinner icing. The icing dries out fast. Remember to cover it in between batches.

Then I played with colors. Decorating sugar cookies is harder than it looks. Another reason I was amazed by Glories Treat's sugar cookies.

Finally I decorated the rest of the "gingerbread" men. And some of them turned out well. I hope you can tell the top ones are medical personnel with stethoscope. The bottom ones are suppose to be my father-in-law with a broken wrist. I know, you've got to use your imagination there. 

It was a ton of fun, although very messy, and time-consuming. Maybe one day I'll get much better at it and I'll be able to make cookies for all occasions!