You guys, I could not be more excited to share this recipe with you!
This is a spin-off of an old family recipe that I’ve added a few different tweaks to!
I know that a lot of decorated cookies feature royal icing, and if you have a royal icing recipe you love, definitely use that!
I have tried many times throughout the years to make royal icing and I struggle with it every single time! Sometimes my consistency is off, sometimes the food coloring throws it off, sometimes it’s too thick; honestly, the list goes on and on.
But besides all those reasons, I’m not the biggest fan of the flavor of royal icing. At least, the kind I end up making.
So the fact that this family recipe calls for a buttercream frosting is right up my alley! Buttercream frosting is such a classic, it can be used for so many things, which makes it perfect for these cookies!
To color the frosting, I used just a simple combination of red, blue, or yellow gel food colorings! I like working with gel because I think the colors are a little bit more vibrant and they don’t affect the consistency too much!
One thing to note about these cookies is that the frosting will harden if you keep them in the fridge, but I still suggest to keep them in a single layer. If you stack them on top of each other and they begin to warm up the frosting will smudge under the cookies!
These cookies also last about one to two days in the fridge! Just make sure they come to room temperature before serving them!
If you leave them longer than two days, the colors may start to run in the frosting, but they still taste delicious!
Ingredients:
1/2 cup of butter, softened
1 cup of sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup of milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla
Zest of one lemon
1 teaspoon of lemon juice
3 and 1/2 cups of flour
2 teaspoons of cream of tartar
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1/4 teaspoon of salt
Frosting:
3 1/2 cups of powdered sugar
1 stick of butter
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of vanilla
3 to 4 tablespoons of milk, warm
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar.
Add the egg, milk, vanilla, lemon juice, and zest. Mix together.
In another bowl, add flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt. Whisk to combine.
Slowly, add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture.
Place dough on a floured surface and roll to out about 1/4 of an inch in thickness.
Bake for about 10-12 minutes, they will still be tan in color when they’re done!
While the cookies cool, time to make the frosting.
Combine the butter and powdered sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer. Slowly work up the speed until all the powdered sugar is incorporated.
Then add in the salt, vanilla, and three tablespoons of warm milk. If the frosting is still too thick, you can add in the remaining tablespoons.
Now, it’s time to frost the cookies!
After creating the colors that you want, place the frosting into the bag. For the cone part, I just used the smallest circle tip that I had and made a criss-cross pattern
For the popsicles, I used an offset spatula to just evenly spread the frosting on the top and then smoothed out the sides. I placed the pink frosting in a piping bag with a small circular tip and used that to pipe the pink on the top.
For the ice cream cones, I just used two fun piping tips to get some fun swirls of frosting and then added some sprinkles!
Aren’t these just the cutest little cookies!?! If these don’t scream summer vacation, then I don’t know what does! Not only are they super easy to make, but they taste pretty good, too!
-Holly Michelle
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