Frosted to Perfection

If you are going to have cut out cookies you need to figure out how to make them pretty, royal icing is a good option, especially for kids. I watered it down a little and my kids were able to use piping bags and decorate a whole batch of Christmas cookies. Nicholas ended up using half the green on his first cookie, so the learning curve on piping happened on cookie number one. All of the frosted cookie dried hard enough to stack, but not too hard to break teeth. Santa certainly enjoyed them, so I think we did OK. Keep the kids busy for more than an hour.

Royal Icing Recipe
4 tbsp meringue powder
scant 1/2 c. water
1 lb. powdered sugar
1/2 - 1 tsp light corn syrup
few drops clear extract, such as almond or vanilla

Combine the meringue powder and water. With the paddle attachment of an electric mixer, beat until combined and foamy. Sift in the powdered sugar and beat on low to combine.
Add in the corn syrup and extract if desired. Increase speed to med-high/high and beat for about 5 minutes or so, just until the icing is glossy and stiff peaks form. Scrape down sides and bottom of the bowl a couple of times during the 5 minutes.
(You should be able to remove the beater from the mixer and hold up and jiggle without the peak falling.) Do not overbeat.
Cover with plastic wrap touching the icing or divide and color using gel paste food colorings.
This "stiff" icing is perfect for outlining, monogramming, and piping details. To fill in your cookies, add water to your icing a teaspoon at a time, stirring with a rubber spatula, until it is the consistency of syrup. This technique of filling a cookie with thinned icing is called "flooding."