If there is one thing that I look forward to in the month of February is spreading the love and making my sweet family of five feel a little more special than they already do on a daily bases. My husband and I tend to celebrate the small stuff, the big stuff...ALL the stuff because I feel like they deserve it and we want to give it. We love celebrating ½ birthdays, good grades, sleeping through the night and something as small as waking up smiling....it's the littles things when you have a 7, 4 and 16 month old 🙂
Shortbread cookies make an appearance in our house for all the occasions. Every birthday has a themed and decorated shortbread cookie and same with all the holidays. Valentines day is the perfect day to throw a little flour around the kitchen (it might get messy) and bake up our family favorite Shortbread Cookies decorated with royal icing.
As I was decorating these, I was inspired by all the artists in my Instagram feed and decided to do a splatter paint detail that you and your littles can do together!
Vanilla Bean Shortbread Cookies
- Yield: 24 1x
Ingredients
Shortbread Cookie
- 1 Cup Granulated Sugar
- 2 Cups Unsalted Butter
- 1 Egg
- 1 Vanilla Bean or 1 tsp Vanilla Bean Paste
- 4 Cups All Purpose Flour
Royal Icing
- 6 Cups Powdered Sugar
- 3-4 Eggs Whites, Pasteurized (add more or less eggs to adjust consistency)
- ½ tsp Vanilla Extract
Instructions
Shortbread Cookies
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and prepare sheet pans with parchment paper
- Cream sugar and butter in a mixing bowl with a paddle attachment
- Add eggs and vanilla bean; mix on low speed until egg is fully incorporated
- Slowly add in the flour and mix until dough comes together into a ball
- Place dough on a floured surface and gently kneed until smooth
- Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes
- Once the dough is chilled, roll out into ⅛" thick and cut into desired shape
- Bake cookies at 350 degrees for 14-18 minutes or until lightly golden on the edges, turning half way
- Allow the cookies to cool before glazing and decorating
Royal Icing
- Combine powdered sugar, eggs whites and vanilla in a mixing bowl with paddle attachment and mix on medium speed for 5 minutes or until icing is smooth
- Divide the icing into 4 bowls
- Save one bowl for white icing for the base of the cookie
- Mix one bowl with hot pink food coloring
- Mix one bowl with lime green food coloring
- Mix one bowl with orange food coloring
- Using the white icing, fill a pastry bag and pipe the icing to cover the top of the cookie
- Allow the white icing to dry for 10 minutes
- Place the colored icing in individual pastry bags and splatter the color onto the white icing to make it look like splatter paint
- Allow the cookies to dry before serving or dry overnight to place in cellophane bags and use as party favors!
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