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Home/Christmas Cookies/Orange Vanilla Sugar Cookies + Royal Icing

Orange Vanilla Sugar Cookies + Royal Icing

These fragrant, buttery, crisp vanilla sugar cookies don’t need an embellishment. But just for fun, why not decorate them with Royal Icing?

Orange Vanilla Sugar Cookies + Royal Icing | LunaCafeThis is the first time in my ENTIRE cookie baking career–and we’re not going to count how many years that is folks– that I have EVER made Royal Icing.

Seriously, what took me so long? Mom always made Buttercream Icing for sugar cookies, and I followed that tradition. Now that I’ve finally tried both options, I can proclaim with absolute certainty that for taste alone, buttercream beats royal hands down. No ifs, ands, or buts: for flavor, butter cannot be beat.

Right. But sometimes, especially during the holiday season, we might make a little tradeoff on the flavor side of the quotient for an additional WOW factor. It is allowed. I’m not going to tell you, however, as is implied in many cookie treatises, that an icing made with powdered egg whites, water, and powdered sugar is scrumptious. It is not. Plus, it dries to an exceedingly hard texture, like those inedible sugar thingies you sometimes see on grocery store decorated cakes. These are truths (flavor and texture) that must be mitigated.

Orange Vanilla Sugar Cookies + Royal Icing | LunaCafe

Royal Icing is so much fun to work with and yields such delicious visual effects, we might at least consider using it when the situation calls for it. Christmas cookie baking is the situation that calls for it.

You want your cookies to be beautiful and to stack layer upon layer in a large tin, without the dreaded smeared frosting issue. You want both the cookie and the icing to store for a few weeks. Uncooked, unsalted butter will turn rancid, even at cool room temperature, in a few days. Also, butter holds quite a bit of water in suspension and that water is absorbed eventually into the cookie, making it undesirably soft.

On the other hand, an egg white, aka royal, icing dries quickly and completely and stays that way over long periods of time. The hardness factor can be minimized by spreading a thin coating of icing, never more than 1/8-inch thick. This way, the silky smooth frosting is appreciated by the eyes and then barely noticed by the palate, which in the case of Royal Icing, is the best possible compromise.

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THERE’S MORE

Here’s the entire LunaCafe Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies: Deck the Halls collection. If you bake along, one cookie a day from December 1st to December 12th, you’ll have a wonderful selection of holiday cookies to share with family and friends, with time to spare.

  • On the 1st day of Christmas: Lily’s Swedish Vanilla Spritz   
  • On the 2nd day of Christmas: Orange Vanilla Sugar Cookies 
  • On the 3rd day of Christmas: Decidedly Lemon Teacakes   
  • On the 4th day of Christmas: Once in a Chocolate-Spice Moon Cookies   
  • On the 5th day of Christmas: Peppermint Stick Shortbread   
  • On the 6th day of Christmas: Lemon-Lime Clove Sugar Cookies   
  • On the 7th day of Christmas: Toasted Almond Black Cherry Shortbread   
  • On the 8th day of Christmas: Green Tea & Rose Spritz   
  • On the 9th day of Christmas: Almond Butter Poinsettia Cookies
  • On the 10th day of Christmas: Lemon Orange Pecan Thumbprint Cookies   
  • On the 11th day of Christmas: Candy Cane Butter Cookies   
  • On the 12th day of Christmas: Ellen’s Swedish Pepparkakor  

Orange Vanilla Sugar Cookies + Royal Icing | LunaCafe

Pages: Page 1 Page 2

Written by:
Susan S. Bradley
Published on:
December 12, 2019

Categories: Christmas Cookies, Cookies, Deck the Halls Cookie CollectionTags: butter cookies, Christmas, Christmas cookies, cookies, holiday, holiday cookies, rolled cookies, sugar cookies

About Susan S. Bradley

Intrepid cook, food writer, culinary instructor, creator of the LunaCafe blog, author of Pacific Northwest Palate: Four Seasons of Great Cooking, and former director of the Northwest Culinary Academy.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Kat

    December 16, 2015 at 2:45 pm

    Hi, I can’t click on the ‘jump to recipes’ button.. : (

    • Susan S. Bradley

      December 18, 2015 at 8:45 pm

      Kat, this seems to be the week the jumps are malfunctioning. Just corrected this jump. Please try again. If you get stuck again, for any post with a jump, simply add 2/ to the url. That will get you to page 2. Thanks! 🙂

  2. Karen

    December 4, 2008 at 1:03 pm

    These are beautiful!And the orange flavor sounds extra special. I’m going to give them a try.

  3. smsb

    December 2, 2008 at 10:44 pm

    Andrea, you are so kind, thank you! 🙂

  4. smsb

    December 2, 2008 at 10:35 pm

    Thank you Hillary! I found the silver sprinkes at a wonderful little shop in Ballard Washington called:

    Cookies in Seattle
    2211 NW Market Street
    Seattle, WA 98107
    206-297-1015

    They sell online as well and the link to their website is at the conclusion of The Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies post.

  5. Hillary

    December 2, 2008 at 12:57 pm

    I love the way you decorated these trees. Where do you find the silver sprinkles?

  6. Andrea

    December 2, 2008 at 7:28 am

    I’ve never made royal icing, but that’s what they use on my favorite sugar cookies at Eli’s. And guess what. Yours are 20 times better looking than theirs, and this is the famous Eli Zabar that I’m talking about. Just beautiful!

Trackbacks

  1. links for 2008-12-04 « Angelchrys says:
    December 4, 2008 at 8:02 pm

    […] Orange Vanilla Sugar cookies | LunaCafe (tags: food recipe baking dessert cookies orange vanilla sugar) […]

  2. Recipe Hit List: 30 Holiday Cookie Recipes » TipNut.com says:
    December 4, 2008 at 11:06 am

    […] Orange Vanilla Sugar Cookies: These cookies are inspired by the sugar cookies my mother, Virginia, made each year for Christmas. I fine-tuned the original recipe over the years, replacing shortening with butter, eliminating milk, and increasing the orange flavor–but the wonderful aroma, subtle sweetness level, and crisp texture remain very much the same. Recipe found at Luna Cafe. […]

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