4th of July Cookies Recipe — Nourish and Nestle

Name: 4th of July Cookies Recipe — Nourish and Nestle
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 40
Ingredients: 10 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature; 1/2 cup sugar; 1/4 teaspoon salt; 1 large egg; 1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract; 2 cups all-purpose flour; Sprinkles/decorations; Royal Icing; Adapted from Bon Appetit; 1 cup powdered sugar; 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice; 3-4 tablespoons warm water, start with 3 and add as needed; Food coloring, optional; Adapted from The Kitchn

by Lynn @ Nourish and Nestle

40 cookies

35 min

For my friends outside of the US, you could easily tailor these Memorial Day or 4th of July cookies to celebrate with your special colors. These red white and blue cookies have made several appearances at our 4th of July and Memorial Day parties.

4th of july cookies recipe nourish and nestle

Choose your favorite sugar cookies recipe for these 4th of July cookies, or use the one I use from Bon Appetit. I find it is reliable, delicious and very easy.

Once your sugar cookies are prepared, then it’s just a matter of preparing your royal icing. For this recipe, you want your icing to be on the thin side…the consistency of cream or syrup is ideal.

N&N Tip: To decorate your 4th of July Cookies, use sandwich ziplock bags with a corner cut out and insert your pastry tips in the end.

Decorate Your Patriotic Cookies

I flood my cookies with the white icing and then draw bull's eyes with red, blue, and a combination of both. I used a #2 and #3 tip for my two different color icings. If I had two #2 tips I would have used them for both colors as I think the #3 is just a tad too big.

Then the fun starts…start dragging a toothpick out from the center of the cookie…starting at the center-most bull’s eye out to the edge of the cookie. Wipe your toothpick off after each swipe and repeat this process, pulling out from the center.

The GIF above makes it look like I went from one outside end to the other…but I didn’t. Definitely only go 1/2 of the circle radius for each swipe. You can stop there, or you can then reverse your ‘pull’ and then come back in from the edge to the center.

4th of July Cookies Recipe — Nourish and Nestle

You can do it! Saved to your recipes

Recipe details

Yield 40 cookies
Time spent: Prep time: 20 Minutes Cook time: 15 Minutes Total time: 35 min

Show Nutrition Info

Per serving

% Daily value

Ingredients

For the Cookies

10 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
Sprinkles/decorations
Royal Icing
Adapted from Bon Appetit

For the Flood Icing

1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
3-4 tablespoons warm water, start with 3 and add as needed
Food coloring, optional
Adapted from The Kitchn

Instructions

For the Cookies

Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl at medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes.
Add sugar and salt and beat until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
Add egg; beat until well blended, about 1 minute.
Reduce speed to low and beat in vanilla.
Add flour and beat on low speed just to blend.
Gather dough into ball; divide in half.
Form each half into a ball and flatten into a disk.
Wrap disks separately in plastic wrap and chill until firm, at least 4 hours.
Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep Chilled.
Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 350'F.
Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
Working with 1 disk at a time, roll out the dough between 2 sheets of waxed paper to 1/8" thickness for smaller (2-inch) cookies and 1/4" thickness for larger (3- to 4-inch) cookies.
Using decorative cookie cutters, cut out cookies and transfer to prepared sheets, spacing 1 inch apart.
If cookies become too soft to transfer to baking sheets, place in the freezer on waxed paper for 5 minutes before continuing.
Gather scraps, roll out the dough, and cut more cookies, repeating until all dough is used.
If not icing cookies, decorate with sprinkles or other toppings as desired.
Bake 1 sheet at a time until cookies are firm on top and golden around edges, about 10-12 minutes for smaller cookies and up to 14 minutes for larger cookies.
Cool completely on the rack.
Decorate with Royal Icing, then sprinkles or other toppings as desired.
Let stand until icing sets.
Can be made 4 days ahead.

For the Flood Icing

Place powdered sugar in your mixer (I like my whisk attachment, but use what you like)
Mix lemon juice into warm water.
Add water/lemon juice mixture to powdered sugar and blend
It should be the consistency of syrup.
Divide into containers and color as desired

Comments

Connie on Apr 12, 2023

Do you have a photo of the placement all the dots before you drug the toothpick through? I'm having trouble "seeing" how you get the design.

3 Reply
BambeeLyn on Jun 09, 2023

These look delightful and ooh so festive, just what the doctor ordered for my table this year❣️

Like Reply

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