Peanut Butter Royal Icing Recipe
Is that a pile of autumn leaves on the table? No, it’s just some delicious peanut butter sugar cookies, topped with easy royal icing, silly!
Equipment
- 1 Stand mixer
- 1 Bowl
- 2 Baking trays
- 1 Rolling Pin
- 1 Cookie cutters
- 2 Grid
- 1 Toothpick to even out the icing
Ingredients
FOR THE SUGAR COOKIES
- 115 g Unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 125 g Smooth peanut butter
- 200 g Caster sugar (US granulated sugar)
- 2 unit Large eggs
- 1 tbsp Good quality vanilla extract
- 500 g Plain or all-purpose flour
- ½ tbsp Baking powder
- ½ tbsp Salt
FOR THE ROYAL ICING
- 400 g Icing sugar or powdered sugar
- 15 g Powdered egg whites
- 1 unit Edible pen (optional)
- 1 tbsp Food coloring (optional)
Instructions
FOR THE SUGAR COOKIES
- Beat the butter, peanut butter, and sugar together using a stand or hand mixer, until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, along with the vanilla extract, beating well between each addition.
- Add the flour to the bowl, along with the baking powder and salt, and mix together on low until a dough forms. Split the dough in half, form into balls, and wrap in cling film or plastic wrap. Place in the fridge for an hour if possible, as this will make the dough much easier to work with, especially if you are going to stamp the top of the cookies. You can bake the dough without refrigerating, though, and it still shouldn’t spread.
- When you are ready to roll out the dough, preheat the oven to 180 °C / 355 °F (160 °C fan), and line two large baking sheets with baking parchment or a silicone mat. Roll out the first ball of dough on a floured surface using a lightly floured rolling pin, until about ¼ inch thick. Using cookie cutters of your choice, cut out the cookies and place them on the baking sheets.
- Bake the cookies for about 8–10 minutes, depending on the size of the cookies. Turn the baking sheet around halfway through baking to make sure they are evenly baked. If you prefer your cookies soft, like I do, then remove them from the oven as soon as they start to go ever so slightly brown at the edges. Leave the cookies to cool for 5–10 minutes on the baking sheet, and then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.
FOR THE ROYAL ICING
- Sift the icing sugar into the bowl of your stand mixer. Add the powdered egg whites as well as 4 tablespoons of water. Beat for five minutes using the beater blade attachment. Add food colouring (or split the icing into separate bowls and colour each individually if using multiple colours). Add a little more water, half a tablespoon at a time, until the icing is at the right consistency for piping: see tip in post above.
- Pipe the icing around the edge of each cookie, and then fill the middle with more icing. Use a toothpick to even up the icing until it is smooth and covers the whole cookie. Leave the cookie to dry for 15 minutes before adding any further colours, so they don’t bleed into each other. Leave the cookies to completely dry (overnight is best) before drawing on with an edible pen: I used a brown one.
Video
Notes
- The baked and iced cookies will stay fresh in an airtight container for almost a week: there is no need to keep them in the fridge. The baked (not iced) cookies can also be frozen for up to three months. Defrost at room temperature and then store in an airtight container for up to 7 days. 2. The unbaked cookie dough can be frozen for up to three months. Wrap the dough tightly in cling film or plastic wrap, and then defrost at room temperature before rolling out and baking.