Soft, buttery sugar cookies cut out in the shape of coffee cups and decorated with red and white royal icing!
Prep Time30 minutesmins
Cook Time10 minutesmins
Chill Time1 hourhr
Total Time1 hourhr40 minutesmins
Course: Cookies
Cuisine: American
Keyword: coffee cup cookie, coffee mug cookies, cut out cookies, cute Christmas cookie ideas, easy cut out cookies, soft cut out sugar cookies
Servings: 8
Calories: 164kcal
Author: Averie Sunshine
Ingredients
Cookies
1 ¾cups224 grams all-purpose flour
1teaspoonbaking soda
⅛teaspoonsalt
½cup113 grams unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1cup201 grams granulated sugar
1large egg
¾teaspoonlemon zestoptional
2teaspoonsvanilla extract
Meringue Powder Royal Icing:
2 ¼cups190 grams confectioners’ sugar, sifted if lumpy
2tablespoonsWilton meringue powder
¼cup-1/2 cup lukewarm water
Red food coloring gelI used Wilton Christmas Red color
2tablespoonsthick caramel sauce for decorating cookiesoptional
Instructions
Cookies:
To a large bowl, add the flour, baking, soda, salt, and whisk to combine; set aside.
To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or large mixing bowl and handheld electric mixer, add the butter, sugar, and beat on high speed to cream (mix) them together, about 3 to 4 minutes. Stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Add the egg, optional lemon zest, vanilla, and beat to incorporate.
Add the flour mixture and beat until a smooth dough forms; don't overmix.
Divide the dough in two equal portions, pat into two balls, wrap each tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Rolling and Cutting Out:
Preheat oven to 350F and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper sprayed with cooking spray, or line with Silpat mats; set aside.
On a lightly floured surface like a clean countertop, roll out the dough in a rough circle to ¼-inch thickness.
Ball up excess dough, re-roll it, cut out additional cookies, and transfer to the prepared baking sheets.
Bake for approximately 10 minutes, or until lightly golden browned around the edges. Start check at 8 minutes since all ovens bake differently. Tip - Bake one sheet of cookies at a time, on the center oven rack, rotating baking sheet once midway though baking for optimal results. Keep other cookie sheet in the fridge while waiting to bake if possible as cold dough bakes better.
Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheets momentarily until they can be tranfserred to a wire rack to cool completely. While the cool, make the icing.
Meringue Powder Royal Icing:
To a large bowl, add the confectioners’ sugar, meringue powder, and beat with a handheld electric mixer until combined.* (See Notes for meringue powder info)
Gradually add the WARM water and beat until stiff peaks form, about 5 minutes. Add more sugar or water to achieve the proper consistency. Tip - The proper consistency for the icing is when you lift the beaters out of it, and the ribbon of icing that falls into the bowl remains on the surface of the icing for 2 to 3 seconds, and then disappears.
Tint ¾ of the icing with red food coloring gel. You will need about 1/8 teaspoon. I use Wilton Christmas Red Gel Color because it doesn't thin out the icing like non-gel food coloring and the shape of red is the perfect holiday color.
Transfer the red and the white icing into two separate pastry bags and get ready to use it immediately. Don't let it sit.
Decorating:
Use a #8 tip for outlining and filling the mug part of the cookie and a #32 tip for filling in the cream part. Tip - Wilton tips numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 work as well in place of the #8 tip.
Begin decorating your least favorite or least pretty looking cookies first. Outline the mug part of the cookie with red icing, then fill it in with red. Optional Tip - Sprinkle some coarse sugar over the red part of the mug before the icing sets up to give a bit more visual pop.
Fill in the cream part on the top of the mug with the white icing.
Draw a white snowflake in the center of the red mug portion.
Optionally draw a thin horizontal line with thick caramel sauce between the mug and cream part. Trader Joe's or my Best and Easiest Salted Caramel Sauce work well.
Once you’ve finished applying the icing to the cookie, shake it very gently to help settle the bumps if there are any. Also, use a toothpick to help smooth out any lumps, bumps, or bubbles.
Repeat the process with all the cookies and allow them to set up fully before storing or enjoying.
Storage:
I recommend storing your decorated holiday sugar cookies airtight at room temp for up to 5 days. While you can likely get away with storing them for up to 2 weeks at room temp, they won’t taste as fresh.
Once they’ve been decorated, do not freeze them because it will cause the icing to smear, run, and bleed together. Although, you can freeze the unbaked cut-out sugar cookie dough. Freeze it airtight in a large disc for up to 4 months, allow it to thaw on the counter, and then roll it out after it’s soft enough, and bake off your fun cut-out sugar cookies.
Notes
*You may be wondering what in the heck is meringue powder and is it really necessary? The simple answer it’s a substitute for egg whites in icing, often in royal icing.Traditional royal icing like I use in my Classic Cut-Out Sugar Cookies has egg whites in it but not everyone wants to use egg whites in their icing nor can everyone find pasteurized egg whites, which is where meringue powder comes in.When you use meringue powder, it substitutes for egg whites, and is almost better than using real egg whites because it dries hard, glossy, and doesn’t fall flat. So yes, for royal icing like I used in the coffee mug sugar cookies, you either need to use meringue powder or you can use my recipe for royal icing with real (pasteurized) egg whites. Without using one or the other, your icing will not set up properly, it will appear duller, it will spread, and won’t give you the results you’re looking for in a decorated sugar cookie.