Christmas Cookie Tree

Sugar Cookie

Ingredients

1/3 cup corn starch 40g

4 cups flour 480g, sifted

3/4 tsp salt 4g

1 cup unsalted butter 227g

1 cup sugar 200g

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract 5mL

Recipe

• Sift your the flour, corn      starch and salt in a large bowl. Give it a whisk.
• In your standing mixer      fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar together.
• Add the eggs while mixing.      Scrape down sides of the bowl.
• Add 1 tsp vanilla extract.
• Pour in the flour mixture      and mix until everything is well incorporated.
• Put the dough in a plastic      bag, flatten it together, then chill it in the refrigerator so it firms      up.
• Once the dough is chilled,      place it on a rolling matt, sprinkle with flour and roll out with a      rolling pin. Move the dough around so to prevent it from sticking.
• Use a circular cookie      cutter to cut out your cookies. Take away extra scraps to re-roll for more      cookies.
• Place them on a non-stick      baking sheet and bake at 375F for 12 minutes.

Royal Icing

Ingredients

3 ¾ cups/1 pound/454 grams confectioners’ sugar

3 large egg whites

½ teaspoon cream of tartar

Pinch kosher salt

Food coloring, as needed

Recipe

· In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the sugar, egg whites, cream of tartar and salt.

·  Whisk until stiff and glossy.

· To tint the frosting, divide into small bowls.

· Cover the ones you aren’t using with plastic wrap; the frosting dries out very quickly. Use a rubber spatula to stir in desired food coloring.

· Though not necessary, it makes life easier if you make two versions of each color — one that is thick to pipe the outline on the cookie, and one that is thinned out slightly with a small amount water to flood the outline.

· Transfer frosting to piping bags fitted with very small round tips (sizes 1 to 2 work best). Pipe frosting onto cooled cookies and let set.