I realise that cupcakes are kinda "over" and the new kid in town is the decorated sugar cookies. Seen some wedding favours these days with butter cookies beautifully drawn with royal icing with colors, so really wanted to try to see if its easy to do.
I found a really good butter cookie recipe and the dough is kinda easy to prepare. The smell in the kitchen while it was making was sooooooo good! Allowing it to rest while it cooled off, its time to prepare the royal icing. That was easy as well but not cheap! Those days people used pure egg whites whipped with icing sugar, but these days, and like many other things, food ingredients are no longer safe, so the trend is to use meringue powder. And the only brand that we have in Malaysia is from Wilton. Which is kinda expensive, but anyway, you always need to be safe than sorry right?
It was really fun piping in the colors - but the REAL PAIN in making these sugar cookies in waiting for the royal icing to dry. It literally takes ages!! They never ever dry in our so-called room temperature as we have such high humidity levels. So you need to dry them in a air-conditioned room for at least 3-4 hrs (overnight is better) and only until they are really dry that you can stack them or pack them into cellophane bags.
So now I understand why for such a tiny wedding cookie favour, they can sell it for a higher price than fully decorated cupcakes! Cos need to factor in air-cond cost .. and all the waiting time .. and painfully painting each and every one in tiny details!!!!
If you know if any other way of drying it faster or have a better royal icing recipe, please do share it with me pleazzzzzzeee!!
