In the interest of Easter weekend, with not much else on my plate today, I baked you sugar cookies, dear Reader.
For nearly 2 years, chickens have nestled their way into our daily lives. My morning coffee and nightly shower revolve around the hens. Flannel shirts and jeans and Ugg boots (don’t ask) all ruined in their muck. But they bring me joy. They lay their eggs and keep busy throughout the day.
So the cookies I made for you are inspired by them. Broken eggs as they appear splattering in the frying pan and the speckled cornflower blues and oaky browns of the Orpington and Reds and Bantams (oh my!).
Ingredients:
1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg (of course, we used our girls' fresh eggs!)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup AP flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
Directions:
1. Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy
2. Add egg and vanilla and mix together
3. Sift together dry ingredients and gently stir into your butter mixture
4. Turn out onto a floured work surface and pat into a disc. Wrap and chill for 1 hour
5. Preheat oven to 400*F
6. Roll out and cut dough into 3-inch rounds (I used a biscuit cutter but a drinking glass would do)
7. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 9-11 minutes, or until edges are just browned
Decorating: I mixed two batches of royal icing (1.5 cups confectioner sugar per 1 egg white, mixed vigorously with a fork until a thick paste consistency). Add a quality yellow food dye until you get the desired color to one batch. Keep the other as white for the albumen of the egg. Pour into two separate piping bags, both fitted with a coupler and a size 12 piping tip.
Pour the white on your cookies in a traditional egg pattern. Allow half an hour to dry. Top with your yellow, with the piping bag completely vertical and a small amount of pressure to create a perfect circle. Use a toothpick to fill in any gaps or arrange the icing if needed. Allow an additional hour to dry completely.
For eggs - use same method above, using an egg cutter and your desired color dye.
