Now that everyone is hopefully really, really enjoying spring, all the things that were impossible during the winter seem 100 times more appealing. For me, that means driving with the windows down, reading a book outside, and steaks on the grill. For others, it means… golf. Seriously, I know so many golfers. It’s never been my thing, everything I hit goes wide and to the left. Or short and to the right. Never the right distance, and never EVER in the right direction. But the good news for me is that I can absolutely decorate a cookie with a golf theme. When a friend showed me what he wanted to celebrate the return of Golf Season, it seemed like I could sink an easy hole-in-one. Fore sure, that will be the only golf play on words in this post. If it’s not, someone will have to give me a mulligan.
Something that I like about this particular cookie design is that it can be done in a day. Even better, it can be done in about 2 hours, much shorter any actual golf game that I’ve suffered through. If that’s not enough good news, let’s add some more! You’re only going to need to make 4 colors for this cookie, and 3 of them in such small amounts that you should only need one batch of my favorite royal icing to create over two dozen of this design. And lastly, if you’re like me and happen to have little kids underfoot that are begging to help decorate, adding the rainbow nonpareils to these cookies is a perfect job for them.
What You’ll Need to Make Golf Course Sugar Cookies:
- Round sugar cookies, baked and cooled completely. Find my favorite foolproof recipe here in detail, or see the recipe linked at the bottom of this post. I used 3″ circles for this blog post, but you can adjust to your needs. I wouldn’t use smaller than 2″, though.
- Green royal icing mixed to flooding consistency. If you’re a beginner, follow this tutorial for best results. If you’re an old cookie decorating pro, you can outline and flood in one step as I do in the video farther down in this post.
- Red, white, and black royal icing, all at piping consistency. You won’t need much of any of these colors, about 1/4 cup of each should be plenty!
- Edible gold pearl dust, lemon extract, and a small paintbrush.
- Rainbow nonpareils
- A counter top fan to shorten drying time
A word about painting cookies: If you’ve never painted a sugar cookie before, have no fear- it’s easy! Grab a small bowl or ramekin and gently tap some of the gold dust into it- you can eyeball the amount, but I usually use about 1 tsp of dust to begin. Add to that 2-3 tsp of clear lemon extract and mix well. It will appear thin at first but this mixture evaporates quicker than you might expect. If it’s thinner than you prefer, add a touch more dust. If it gets too thick as you spend time painting, add more extract. To actually paint your cookies, dip your paintbrush into the gold paint and then lightly run it across the area you want to paint. It’s much better to do a second coat later than to over saturate the area in one go. This paint dries quickly, so a few minutes after you’re done you can decorate on top of it if you need to.
Well, let’s take a swing at these cookies! (Sorry, a little birdie promises that’s the last pun.)
Start mixing up the gold pearl dust and lemon extract in a small ramekin or dish to make your paint as outlines above. Paint a medium sized patch of gold on one side of your cookie, directly on the cookie surface. Do your best to stay away from the outside edges. Once you’re satisfied with your coverage, give the cookies a few minutes to dry.
When you’re ready to proceed, grab your bag of green royal icing and flood your cookie, also outlining a space over the area painted gold to create a ‘sand trap’ shape. Think of a lima bean and try to keep that shape in mind. Because sometimes things aren’t as simple in practice as they seem in theory, if you have trouble making the sand trap, try this trick: use a food grade marker to lightly draw the outline of the shape on your cookie first, then flood. I show this technique in the video above. Make sure that if you do this, that you completely cover your marker lines with icing so that they don’t show through under the edges later. Now allow your cookies about 1 hour under a counter top fan to firm up.
Now we’re going to create the golf course crowd. Use your white icing (which should be at about the same consistency as your green) to create a curved, white ‘bar’ shape with a #2 tip directly opposite your sand trap shape. Immediately after, grab your nonpareils and sprinkle them over the cookie, completely covering the white icing. You should approach the crowd creation step one cookie at a time to prevent your icing from creating a skin that the nonpareils won’t stick to. Gently shake the excess nonpareils off and move on the the next cookie, then repeat!
Next, it’s time for flags and golf balls. The flags are pretty self explanatory, make the black flag pole using a #1 tip, and then create the triangle shape with red and a #1 tip. Swap the #2 tip on your white icing for another #1, and carefully drop a small amount of icing next to the flag to create a golf ball. If you get a point on your golf ball shape, you can tap it down with a small silicone decorating tool. Put your completed cookies back under the fan until they are firm- you can serve them at home after about 2 hours, however any bagging should wait until the next day if possible.
What did I tell you? Easiest cookie ever. How did they turn out for you? Don’t fore-get to let me know in the comments if you have any thoughts or questions that I can answer. And that was my last pun of this post. I don’t think I can wedge in any more, anyway.
Foolproof Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup butter
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp almond extract
- 1 egg
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350.
- In bowl, mix together 3 cups of the flour and baking power. Set aside.
- In separate bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add in the extracts and the egg and beat until combined.
- Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture. Dough will be crumbly.
- Press dough together with hands, and roll out on a well-floured surface. Cut shapes and place on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper.
- Refrigerate baking sheet for at least 10 minutes.
- Bake for 9-11 minutes, remove when cookie edges are just barely golden. Allow several minutes to cool on sheet before moving cookies to a rack.
