These pretty Spring Flower Sugar Cookies are perfect for any occasion. These cookies are easy to make and are effective.
To make them pretty I used royal icing, dried flowers and isomalt to decorate.
Ingredients for Sugar Cookies:
- 113g room temperature butter
- 100g granulated sugar
- 1 small beaten egg at room temperature
- 1/2 tbsp vanilla essence
- 225g plain flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- zest of 1 orange
Method for sugar cookies:
- Cream the butter and sugar until light and creamy
- Add in the egg and vanilla essence and beat again. It should be well combined
- Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt
- Gradually add in the flour mixture. Beat on low speed and it is all combined
- Combine the dough with your hand until it comes together. This should take about 30 seconds
- Wrap the dough in cling film and chill for 4 hours or freeze for about 20 minutes
- Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it out onto a baking sheet. I use a silpat. I always lightly flour the surface. If you do not have a baking sheet, use a lined baking tray.
- Cut the sugar cookie flowers out. You need two flower cookie cutters that are different sizes for these spring flowers. However, one can work and you can use a little round cutter for the inside.
- If the middle flower (the smaller cut flower) does not come off when you cut it, press the middle and gently peel it
- Peel off the excess dough around the flowers and repeat the process of rolling the dough on another baking sheet and cutting until you have used up all the dough. If you find the dough is sticking too much, put it back in the fridge for 20 minutes.
- Place the cut flowers in the fridge for 10 minutes
- Preheat oven to 180
- Bake the flowers for about 10-12 minutes
- Once baked let them cool on the baking sheet for around 5 minutes before placing them on a cooking rack
decorating the sugar cookies
Stat by making some royal icing. The recipe below makes more icing than you require however, it lasts about a month in the fridge.
Ingredients for Royal Icing:
- 1 tbsp meringue powder
- 3 tbsp water (plus more if the mixture is too thick)
- 160g icing sugar
Method for Royal Icing:
- Whisk the meringue powder and water in a bowl until foamy and white (about 3 minutes)
- Add the icing sugar, bit by bit, and whisk on medium speed until very stiff and thick
- If you want to add in colours do it now and whisk the mixture again. Try and use gel food colouring. Oil will not work that well. I kept the icing on these white.
Getting creative with cookie art:
To turn the flower cookies into spring flower sugar cookies, you will need some edible dried flowers, royal icing and isomalt. Dried flowers are much easier to work with than fresh-pressed flowers. Examples include dried rose petals, lavender and saffron flowers.
When working with isomalt you have to be very careful and quick. The melted isomalt hardens fairly quickly once you take it off the heat and once you start decorating. For these flower cookies, I put a teaspoon of the melted isomalt in the middle of the cookie and straight away sprinkled on some flower petals.
You can either outline the cookies with royal icing or flood them. If you are flooding the cookies ( filling them all with royal icing), make the mixture a bit runnier so it spreads easier. TIP – Always outline your cookies before flooding them so the icing does not overrun.
Dried flowers stick well on royal icing and are really effective.
Like the sound of these cookies? Try out my shaker cookies.
