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Apple Blossom Sugar Cookies
These Apple Blossom Sugar Cookies are the sweetest way to celebrate spring!
Course: Dessert
Servings: 40 2" cookies
Author: Cristina
Ingredients
Sugar Cookies
  • 3 cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 cup white granulated sugar
  • 1 cup butter , room temperature (if you live in a very warm place, from the fridge is fine)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • OPTIONAL: 1 tsp almond extract
Royal Icing
  • 4 Tbsp meringue powder
  • 1/2 cup of water , minus 1 tablespoon.
  • 1 lb . powdered sugar , sifted
  • 1 tsp light corn syrup
  • 1/2 tsp clear vanilla extract
  • OPTIONAL: 1/2 tsp clear almond extract
  • Pink and yellow food colouring (gel or powder is best because it doesn't add any more liquid)
  • 1 cup of water and a tablespoon or clean spray bottle
Instructions
Sugar Cookies
  1. Heat the oven to 350°.
  2. In a bowl, combine the flour and baking powder, and set aside.
  3. In a mixing bowl, cream the sugar and butter until smooth.
  4. Add the egg and vanilla and almond extracts.
  5. On low speed, slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, and mix until just combined. It will still be crumbly.
  6. Pour the dough onto a floured surface, squeezing it into a ball.
  7. Roll out, and cut with a five-petal flower cutter, making sure to keep your flowers as close together as possible. Place cut-out flowers on a parchment covered baking sheet. Reroll your extra dough and repeat until all the dough is used.
  8. Bake for 12-15 minutes.
  9. Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes on the pans before transferring them to a cooling rack. They need to be completely cool before you ice them.
Royal Icing
  1. Using a paddle attachment on your mixer, mix the water and meringue powder and beat until it's foamy, scraping the sides with a spatula if necessary.
  2. Add your sifted powdered sugar and continue to mix on low.
  3. Add the corn syrup and extract(s), scraping the sides to make sure everything is incorporated.
  4. Turn your mixer to medium-high, and continue to beat just until the royal icing is glossy and has stiff peaks. Don't overbeat it! This will ruin your icing. It takes about 2-5 minutes.
  5. If you want to store or freeze the icing, do it at this stage, while it is very stiff.
  6. Measure out 1/2 cup of icing each for the pink dye and the yellow dye, and place them in separate bowls. Dye them and really stir to make sure that the colour is evenly distributed.
  7. Royal icing dries very quickly, so while you're working on one bowl, put plastic wrap on the other bowls directly in contact with the icing all over so that it doesn't harden on top.
  8. We want 15-second royal icing, so we are going to add water a tablespoon at a time (or with a squirt from the spray bottle), stirring after every addition.
  9. You will know it's the right consistency when you run your spoon through it and it takes about 15 seconds for the line to disappear. Do this for your white, pink, and yellow icing.
Decoration (Watch the YouTube Video here!:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoERVtZT3BM)
  1. Using a piping bag filled with white 15 second icing and fitted with a #1 (small, round tip), make the outline of the petals one at a time, making sure that they are completely separated until they join in the middle. I find it easier to alternate sides to keep the petals even!
  2. Once the outlines are complete, fill in each petal in a circular motion with the icing using the same bag and tip.
  3. Using a toothpick or sharp, metal tool, even out the icing, filling in any holes that you might have from filling them. Tap the cookie on the table to get rid of air bubbles, and lance any that pop to the surface.
  4. While the white icing is still wet, use a piping bag filled with pale pink icing and a #2 (slightly larger, round) tip to pipe a large dot in the centre of the cookie.
  5. Using a toothpick or tool, pull the pink icing from the centre down the middle of each petal, so that it forms a five-pointed star shape.
  6. Let the iced cookie dry for 8-10 hours.
  7. Using a piping bag filled with the yellow icing fitted with a #1 tip, place dots in the centre of the cookie. I like to have one in the middle and then a circle around it.
  8. Let dry before you stack or transport!
Recipe Notes

It will probably take you 30 mins to an hour to decorate all of the cookies.

This recipe makes A LOT of flower cookies. If it's too much for you, I recommend making the whole recipe and then freezing some for later instead of trying to halve the dough recipe.

If you need to store your icing (like your yellow because you aren't using it right away), put it in a ziplock bag and squeeze all the air out. Royal icing gets hard very quickly (like we want it to!) so always make sure what you're not using is covered with plastic wrap touching the entire surface so there's no air contact.