If you know me, you'll know that I love making sugar cookies. They're not necessarily easy to do, and not fast, but for whatever reason I just love making them. I think it's the fact that you can be so creative on something that you can eat later! I have so many cookie cutters, it's crazy, and I keep buying more...it's one of my weaknesses, cookie cutters and throw pillows (you can't have too many throw pillows) oh and sprinkles, they fit into that weakness category too.
Anyways, I've been making regular ol' vanilla/almond sugar cookies for years now, invite me to a party and odds are, that's what I'll be bringing...whoa, what if people only invite me to parties for my sugar cookies...haha, that's silly, that wouldn't happen, I'm hilarious. Acca- awkward...
Soooo, with it being fall I thought how can I update my favorite recipe to fit the season more? Obviously the answer was pumpkin spice. That's the answer to everything this time of year, what do you want to drink? Pumpkin Spice. Eat? Pumpkin Spice (pumpkin ravioli from Trader Joe's is delicious) Decorate? Pumpkin Spice! You get it, I'm not alone in this.
Let's get back on track, with this recipe I also wanted the decoration to be a bit easier. It is very time consuming having to outline, flood, and decorate all those cookies. I wanted to color the dough and marble it, to act as the main decoration and then use plain white icing to add a little detail. Plus less icing equals healthier cookie, then you can eat more!
Click HERE for the original cookie recipe. This is my all time favorite sugar cookie recipe because you don't need to chill the dough. Once you bring it together, you can go on, roll it out, and start cutting your shapes. Sometimes the dough is a little soft, I think it depends on how soft your butter is when you start. In that instance I would recommend popping it in the fridge for about 5 minutes to just firm up a bit because you want your circle to be a circle and not a polygon!
But this is what you do if you want the pumpkin spice...
- Gather all your ingredients. Make sure your butter is room temperature.
- Follow the directions from Katrina's recipe.
- Add 1 tsp Pumpkin Spice to the flour mixture.
- Add 1/2 tsp cinnamon (I like a little extra) to the same flour mixture.
- Mix dry ingredients all together with a big spoon.
- Keep following Katrina's recipe. Mixing the dry ingredients into the wet. I use a big spoon and scoop a little bit at a time in there.
- Once the dough is together divide it into four sections. These are what you'll color.
- Put a little bit of food coloring into the dough and mix together. If you don't want it all over your hands I recommend wearing food safe gloves.
- After all the dough is colored, tear off bits of each color and spread it around. this will create a blotchy effect. You could roll the dough into thin logs and then twist them together, but remember the more you mix it together the more the colors will blend together and then turn brown. So I wanted to start not as marbly at first, then after I collected the off bits from the first cut it would get more marbled as time went on. If that makes sense.
- Cut out your shapes and bake!
- Make the icing and decorate.
Icing Recipe: HERE <-- If you want plain, below is mine with pumpkin spice, it's also cut in half since you're only doing outlines and frills.
- 1 cup Powdered Sugar (Icing Sugar if you're British)
- 1/2 Tbsp Meringue Powder
- 1 1/2 Tbsp Water
- 1/2 tsp Vanilla
- Sprinkle of Pumpkin Spice
I like my icing to be a bit stiffer so I add 1 Tbsp and then a little more at a time to get the right consistency. 1 1/2 should be fine though, if you want it to be looser add more. But be careful, you can always add more water but can't take it out. Also, the level on pumpkin spice in the icing is completely up to you!
Here's a good tip, put the piping bag (ziploc bag) in a large cup, easier to fill! You don't have to hold the bag while trying to pour in the icing.
Here's the finished product. As you can see I simply outlined the shapes with the icing and then added the veins of the leaves and a few accents on the pumpkins. Easy peasy. You can also add sprinkles for extra pizzazz! Enjoy!