Angelic Vanilla Bean Sugar Cookies

I have a thing for angels. I have figurines sitting on the shelves and in windows,  I have a treasured painting that my niece painted for me, and I have a professional portrait of my, then little girl, all dressed up in white with angel wings. It’s just adorable and I paid a mint for it. It’s one of those possessions I would grab first in case of a fire. What can I say? I love angels! So when I saw these cookies on the website of FancyFlour, I knew I wanted to make my own Valentines this year.

I wanted to make them special. They were after all, for Valentine’s Day.  So I made my favorite sugar cookie recipe, and added the seeds of a vanilla bean. I rolled them out nice and thick and I used a square cookie cutter.

Then I made the royal icing. After trying to frost the first few with a spatula, I decided it was much easier, and faster, to put the icing in the corner of a plastic bag. After snipping the corner, and frosting a few cookies this way,  I decided I really like playing with royal icing.

So this being my first experience with wafer paper, I’ve learned a few things along the way. The above cookie is a sample of the don’ts.

The angles are printed with a food safe ink on wafer paper. Wafer paper is an edible starch based confection, made of potato starch, water,  and vegetable oil. It is some what fragile. First you have to cut the image out. After the first dozen, I learned to cut them more closely. You can see why above. Not so pretty.

When you apply the design to royal icing, the icing must be completely dry. Overnight is recommended and thats how long I dried mine. Then you simply spread a thin layer of light corn syrup to the back of the image and apply to the cookie. Then it’s turned upside down on parchment paper to ensure a smooth finish. I brushed the corn syrup right on the cookie. Not a bright idea. It was to much corn syrup and you could see it in the finished cookie.

I also didn’t realize how long my cookies would take to dry and I was doing this a 6 o’clock in the morning. The party that I wanted to take them to was at 9AM. I thought I would have plenty of time to finish up until the phone rang at 6:15. I had to go in to cover someone who called in sick. I had to take them in while the tops were still tacky to the touch, and unfinished. Again, lesson learned! Don’t wait till the last minute to finish your cookies.

I took the last dozen of my cookies to a friends house and we finished them together. The angles were trimmed more closely, and less corn syrup was used.

After they were dried, we embellished them with some gold colored sparkle dust. It blended the edges of the image into the cookie a bit more and gave then an angelic glow. I was much happier with the second batch of decorated cookies. And a little more experienced!

I put my dried finished cookie in a vellum envelope, sealed with a puffy red sticker.   A perfect valentine from my heart!

This was a great project and I cant wait to try it again. I have some butterflies just waiting to become a cookie!

Sugar Cookies

Adapted from A Taste of Home Magazine

• 1 1/2 cups butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 vanilla bean (scraped)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 5 1/2 cups flour

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and both vanillas: beat untill light and fluffy. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt: gradually adding to creamed mixture and mix well. Chill for 1 hour or untill firm.

On a lightly floured board, roll dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut with cookies cutters of your choice. Place cookies on a greased cookie sheet.

Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes or untill lightly browned around the edges. Cool completely on wired rack.

Yield depends on size and thickness of cookies.

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Tagged as: Angels, cookies, Sugar, sweet, Vanilla