Not-Too-Puffy Sugar Cookies

As I've mentioned before, I am a HUGE fan of cookie cutters. But not just any cookie cutter will do; only the weirdest and geekiest will find a happy home in my kitchen.

So when PAX East (the gaming convention held in Boston that I attend every year) rolled around and I started to think up cookie ideas for the Cookie Brigade (a group that gives away cookies to PAX attendees and takes donations for Child's Play), I knew I had to be on the lookout for more geeky stamps.

And then I found my new favorite Etsy shop, WarpZone. It is FILLED with amazingly-detailed, highly geeky cookie cutters made using a 3-D printer. I had such a hard time picking some and not just buying everything she had. I'm actually still fighting that temptation...

I opted for Doctor Who (above) and Archer (below). The Archer ones are awesome, but they were a little too delicate because of how the heads stick out for me to bring to PAX again. The Doctor Who ones, however, turned out AWESOME! I got great response when I was handing them out, and I'm really happy with how the food coloring in the dough turned out. The weeping angels turned out the best, because I used black dye and marbled it in a bit to look like stone.

Oh, and Cookie Brigade ended up raising $17,650 this PAX East!!! How incredible is that?!

The problem with these kinds of cookie cutters, though, is that you need to use a dough that doesn't rise too much in the oven. My usual sugar cookie recipe puffs up a fair deal. Luckily, I found a great recipe in an old issue of Cooking Light, and I ended up making 6 batches of it. It's not a particularly special sugar cookie recipe, but I like to keep track of anything I've had substantial results with. It's also a fairly forgiving dough - I rerolled it and rerolled it after screwing up quite a few times (these cookie cutters need the dough to be a very specific thickness), and I didn't feel the quality of the cookie suffered. I will DEFINITELY be making these cookies for PAX again next year.

Not-Too-Puffy Sugar Cookies (adapted from Cooking Light)
1 cup sugar
10 Tbsp butter, softened
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract or paste
2 egg whites
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups flour

In the bowl of a mixer, cream together sugar and butter. Beat in vanilla and egg whites, then beat in baking powder and salt. Slowly add flour until combined. Divide dough in half, shaping each half into a disk. If you want to add food dye (I recommend gel food dye) to the dough, gently work it in now (don't forget plastic gloves!). Wrap with plastic wrap and chill at least one hour.

Preheat oven to 375°. Lightly flour your rolling surface, then roll dough out to desired thickness (about 1/4 inch for these cutters). Stamp away to your heart's content! Place cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet with about 1 inch between cookies. Bake for 10 minutes or until just starting to brown at the edges.

Come to the Dark Side, We Have Cookies

Does my family know me or what? My birthday was last month, and about 93% of the presents I received were cooking related (and this isn't the first time this has happened). One of my brothers, who taught me all the geeky things I needed to know as a child, got me these awesome Star Wars cookie cutters from Williams-Sonoma. I had been lusting after these on a recent W-S visit (along with these nifty pie molds, of which I received three) and was so happy to unwrap the package and have Yoda, Darth Vader, a Stormtrooper, and Boba Fett staring back at me.

And these cookie cutters are fabulous! I took the time to frost them all with royal icing to give to an even geekier friend for his birthday, but by frosting them, you lose all the neat details that the cutter adds (plus, they look great without adding so much work).

This was only the second time I've worked with royal icing, but this project was a million times more ambitious than my first adventure. Nevertheless, I have a better handle on the process and will surely be using it again.

Royal Icing
4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
4 Tbsp meringue powder (can be found at a craft store if not at the supermarket)
6 Tbsp water

Combine the ingredients in the bowl of a standing mixer. With the paddle attachment, mix on low speed for 7-8 minutes, until icing is more matte than glossy. This icing is still a little too stiff to work with, but it's better to mess around with smaller quantities than the whole batch. Keep icing covered to prevent from hardening.

Coloring: Gel coloring is a better choice than liquid dyes, but it's a little more expensive. The gel texture doesn't mess with the consistency of the icing the same way that liquid does. Either way, add a little at a time until you reach the desired color.

To pipe: Add water as needed to reach a consistency that will pipe easily (as stiff as you can make it while allowing it to be piped out of a bag in a continuous line). If the icing becomes too watery, add a little powdered sugar at a time and mix. Put some of the icing in a piping bag fitted with a small round tip and outline the area you want to be filled.

To flood: Water down the remaining colored frosting until it reaches a consistency that can run off the back of a spoon. Put icing in a squeeze bottle, or if you're like me and don't have all the proper tools on hand, use a spoon. Add icing to the areas that have been outlined and use a toothpick to push the icing into all the corners and to pop any air bubbles that might come up. Let dry for at least a few hours before adding any other details on top.

Store in an airtight container when frosting is not in use.

I learned all about royal icing from Annie's Eats - check out the blog to get more details from someone who knows much more about the topic than I do.