Easter egg cookies

The inspiration for these easter cookies came from the tradition that we have in our family. Easter Monday is a holiday in Slovenia and usually the whole family gets together. We paint and decorate hardboiled eggs and we exchange these eggs at lunch on Monday. This year I decided to make egg shaped sugar cookies instead of real eggs, because there are simply too many hardboiled eggs leftover from easter.

The cookie is a standard recipe I used a few times now and it never disappoints. For the decoration I used colored royal icing. I make my royal icing with powdered sugar, powdered egg whites, water and usually I use homemade vanilla extract. This time I substituted vanilla extract for orange, which I made a few months ago. The orange extract is simple to make, all you need is orange peal (not chemically treated) and good quality vodka. Combine those two, after one week strain the vodka and there you have it. It gives a divine orange flavor to cakes, cookies and other pastries. 

The piping of the royal icing still gives me troubles. I'm really terrible at drawing and it shows. I had a few issues drawing the lines perfectly straight and the lace piping needs some work. I also used a brush embroidery technique I mentioned in a flower cookies post. I was happy with the finished look of the cookies but I will definitely work on my piping and decorating techniques more. 

There is always some leftover royal icing every time I decorate cookies. Because I hate wasting anything, I piped additional flowers and leafs onto parchment paper and let it dry. When the icing is dry it comes of easily and the decorations can be used in many ways. You can put some on chocolate lollipops like I did.

After the cookies were completely dry I packaged them into cellophane bags with some pink easter straw.

Easter egg cookies

(Makes about 40)

Time:

Preparation: 1 hour

Baking: 7-8 min

Cooling: 30 min
Icing: 1-2 hours
Drying: overnight

For the cookies:

• 227g room temperature butter
• 175g icing sugar
• 1 room temperature egg
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 400-425g plain flour

For the icing:

• 360g icing sugar
• 2 tablespoons meringue powder
• 2 teaspoons orange extract (or other)
• 72ml warm water
• food coloring (I used green, purple, red and yellow)
• small sugar pearls

Making the cookies:

Combine the flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl and set aside. Put butter and icing sugar in the bowl of your electric or hand mixer and mix until pale and fluffy. add the egg and vanilla and mix. While mixing, slowly add the flour mixture little by little until a dough is formed. When the dough is mixed it will be a little soft but it will firm up as it rests so set it aside for 5 minutes (not in the fridge).  

While the dough is resting prepare your rolling pin, flour for dusting, cookie cutters and parchment paper. Take 1/4 of the prepared dough, place it on the parchment and form it into a flat disc. Sprinkle the dough with some flour and roll it out to about 0,6 cm (0,25 inches) thickness. After the dough is rolled, cut out the desired shapes (put some flour on the cookie cutters), as closely together as possible. Add the scraps back to the dough and continue doing this until all of the dough has been used.

When the cookies are cut use an offset spatula to transfer them to a parchment lined baking tray.

Bake the cookies in a preheated oven at 200°C (400°F) for 7-8 minutes (they may seem under-baked but they will bake through while resting). Take the cookies out of the oven and, because the cookies will be a bit fragile, let them cool on a baking tray for at least 30 minutes.

              

Making royal icing:

Stir the orange extract into half the water. Using the paddle attachment, gently mix together sugar and meringue powder. With the mixer on slow speed add the water/orange mixture , the icing will become thick and lumpy. Continue adding the rest of the water until the mixture reaches thick consistency (like honey). Turn the mixer to medium speed and beat for 2-4 minutes or until the icing is thick and fluffy.Watch carefully and stop the mixer when the icing forms soft peak.

Divide the royal icing in five bowls. Take the first bowl of the royal icing and put in a drop of purple food coloring and stir. Add a little of water and mix until you achieve "flooding" consistency, the icing should flow from the spatula and fold on itself in 30 seconds (more information at coloring and preparing royal icing ). Pour the icing in a squeeze bottle and set aside. 

In the second bowl I used yellow food coloring and made the same "flooding" consistency. Pour the icing in another squeeze bottle and set aside.

In the third bowl, I made a white piping consistency icing for the decorations. Place the icing in a piping bag fitted with a 2 mm round attachment and set in a glass with a damp cloth at the bottom (this stops the icing from drying at the tip).

In the forth bowl I made the icing for the leafs, I used green food coloring and a piping bag with a leaf attachment. In the last bowl I made a red piping consistency icing and I transfered the icing into a piping bag with a star shaped attachment, for small flowers.

Ice the cookies with the yellow and purple "flooding" icing first. Let them dry for couple hours or overnight.

When the cookies are completely dry start piping the decorations. I made different stripes and tried to make a lace effect. I also piped some flowers and brushed them with a small paint brush. Sprinkle some sugar pearls for the flower centers. Lastly I added some green leafs to the flowers.

Have fun decorating and do not worry if they are not perfect, mine were certainly not but practice makes perfect right ;)?