Cardamom Sugar Cookies

Having a go-to sugar cookie recipe is about as important as having that little black dress at the ready in your closet.  It’s a necessity!  I have been making these sugar cookies for years and the cardamom is the not-so-secret ingredient that elevates these from the ‘Oh, a sugar cookie.  Nice.’ to the “Mmmm….these taste great!  What’s in these?’ The cardamom gives a little je ne sais quoi to the batter.  They’re sweet, but not too sweet, with a hint of spice.

In a pinch, you can use a glaze or frosting to quickly decorate your cookies, or if you have the time, use my royal icing recipe, and have a little fun with your decorating!

A friend of mine asked me to help her out with some cookies for a Dr. Seuss themed baby shower.  I, of course, knew I would use this sugar cookie recipe and got started on what turned out to be a pretty big project!  Here’s what happened…

I was so focused on the decorating of these cookies, that I took very few pictures of the process of making the cookie batter.  My bad!  It’s easy to make, you just need to give yourself enough time, as it has to set in the fridge for 1 to 2 hours.  I have left the discs of batter in the refrigerator overnight as well, and it has been fine.  The batter will seem as hard as a rock just out of the fridge, but not to worry, it will soften.

Roll your batter out to a 1/4 inch thickness.  For uniformity’s sake, make sure you roll out your batter as evenly as possible or you will have some cookies that cook too quickly and others that don’t cook quickly enough!  You can use whatever shape you want to make your cookies.  Because of the theme I was following, I did a baby onesie cookie.

These were pretty generous in size, which worked out well, since they were the favors for the baby shower, and since everyone was only getting 1 cookie each, it was important they be substantial.  I had to make a lot of cookies!  I think I did 4 batches of sugar cookies.  I’ve blocked it from my mind.

I’m going to get straight to the recipe of these sugar cookies and then I will share with you how I decorated them!

Cardamom Sugar Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature*

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon cardamom

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Combine your flour, cardamom, salt and nutmeg in a separate bowl and set aside.  Using a hand or stand mixer, blend your butter and sugar together until combined.  Add in your egg and vanilla and mix.  Turn your mixer to its lowest setting and add your flour mixture slowly until all of the powdered mixture is combined.  Divide batter into two discs, wrap and chill for 1 to 2 hours.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out one disc at a time to a 1/4 inch thickness.  Use desired cookie cutter shape and, if necessary, use a spatula to help lift the cookie onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet.

If batter gets so soft that it is sticking to your surface, let it set for a little bit in the fridge.

Bake for 12-15 minutes.  Cookies should look only slightly browned on the sides.

*Salted butter also works just fine

Enjoy!

(Source: https://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipe/cardamom-sugar-cookies/4014/)

Okay…now for the fun part!  Decorating!!  I had to do some research on exactly what I was wanting to do as ‘the cookie’ for these favors.  I had hoped to do the Cat in the Hat’s hat as the cookie, but it was impossible to find that shaped cookie cutter, unless I ordered one (which I did, but it came about a week late).  So, I decided to go with a ‘Thing 1, Thing 2’ idea and got started.

To begin, I made lots of royal icing.  Once I had that ready, I could start adding my color. I knew I needed black, red, blue, and white.

When you are working with royal icing, remember to keep it covered when you aren’t using it or it will begin to harden.  I covered my bowls of icing with a damp towel.  When I wasn’t using a piping bag that still had icing in it, I put it in a ziplock bag or wrapped it in a damp washcloth.

I went to a local cake decorating store and got these colors.  These are gel food colors and I find they work best in giving you the color you hope to achieve.  I didn’t end up using the white food coloring because my icing was white enough.  I bought it more for intrigue, but didn’t need to use it.

Your color will darken the longer it sits, so it’s really important to keep that in mind, especially if you are trying to achieve a lighter shade.  The only colour I needed to be careful with was the blue, as I wanted it to stay in a lighter, baby shade.  I, obviously needed the black, well…black!  And I needed a deep shade of red.

While I have a set of piping bags of my own, I bought disposable ones, as I knew with such dark colors, it would make a huge mess and I preferred just tossing them away once I was finished, than having to worry about cleaning them.

I started by outlining each cookie with black icing. Once they were set, I started to fill them in.  Don’t worry if they aren’t all well piped.  Will give your cookies more character!

Before you begin this step, it’s necessary that you thin your icing with some warm water.  Only a very little!!  You can always add more, but you can’t take away!  The idea is, you want to add enough water into your icing, so that if you ran a toothpick through it, the line from the toothpick would fade away.  If your icing is too runny, it will spill over the sides of your cookie.  Not good.

I used a toothpick to help the icing into the nooks and crannies.

Lots to go!

This cookie is just about done.  It needs to set overnight at least, to make sure the icing has completely set.

Then I did them in blue!  30 red and white.  30 blue and white.  Yikes!

Using an edible black pen, and only once the cookies were completely set, I wrote ‘Thank you!’ on each cookie.

All packaged and ready to go!  Phew!