American Flag Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing - Tutorial

It's Memorial Day. Today I'm thinking about and appreciating the sacrifice of our military and their families. I so admire anyone that has served our country. Their bravery and their willingness to sacrifice everything to defend us is something I find hard to truly understand. They fill me with awe. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

In honor of Memorial Day, I've made an American flag platter of sugar cookies with royal icing.

It was inspired by the Bearfoot Baker and Cookie Artisan.  I saw Cookie Artisan's platter on flickr first and thought about making my own version.  Then I saw the Bearfoot Baker's blog post and knew it was fate.

I decided to make a mini platter.  The cookies aren't minis.  The platter is.  It's just one dozen cookies.  If you're looking for a super fast and easy set of cookies, this is it.  Here's how . . .

I decided to add stars to the rectangles, just to change things up a bit.

When the dough is still raw, make an impression with a mini star cutter on the upper half.

If you can  fit four mini stars on your rectangle, that would be great.

I made two of these, but only ended up using one.  If you're making a large platter, you should make four of these.

Using blue royal icing, outline and flood the background.

Allow it to dry while you flood the rest of the cookies.

For one dozen, you'll need:
1 star cookie,
5 red,
3 white,
3 divided in half - red on top, white on bottom

Flood the white stars.  After they dry, outline them.

I decided to try one other version - 3D stars.

I made some mini stars and adhered them to a solid blue background with royal icing.

Please do as I say, not as I do . . . Use your background color icing to glue!  In this case, use blue, not white.  And don't use so much that it oozes out.  Sheesh.

Here's the second version.  I like the first one better.

Fast, easy, and oh so patriotic.

Perhaps I'll make the all star version like Cookie Artisan's for Fourth of July!