Batter Up! Baseball Sugar Cookies

America's favorite pastime is in full swing so to celebrate I made these baseball sugar cookies.   These treats will be given to Justin, who at 7 years old is already a keen enthusiast.  Am I a fan of baseball?  Not really, not at all actually, LOL! 

My favorite sports to watch are tennis and college basketball.  Wimbledon or the World Series? Not a difficult question...I'd choose Wimbledon every time.  But I do understand baseball's appeal.  Sitting in a beautiful ballpark, the sun on your face, sipping a cold one and enjoying a hot dog.  Oh yeah, and I guess watching the game too! 

The design on these cookies is really simple so it's perfect for the beginning baker.  You take a round cookie and apply a base coat of white royal icing (flooding consistency).  Let this dry for 24 hours.  Tint a thicker consistency of the frosting red and use this to pipe the seams of the baseball onto the white cookie.  You can also create a basketball, tennis or golf ball with a similar icing technique. 

I'll be making several different kinds of iced sugar cookies over the next few weeks so I hope you check back to see what they are. 

Basic Vanilla Sugar Cookie 

1 cup butter, at room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a standing mixer with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add egg and vanilla extract and combine until egg is completely incorporated.  Add flour, baking powder and salt and mix until no trace of dry ingredients remain. 

Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to about 1/4" thickness and cut out shapes using cookie cutters.

Bake for about 18 minutes or until golden brown.

Royal Icing

4 cups powdered sugar

1/4 cup meringue powder

water

gel food coloring

Mix powdered sugar and meringue powder in bowl of stand mixer until well combined.  Slowly add water and mix until you get the consistency you want*.  Add food coloring to achieve your desired color.

For outlining: consistency should be like glue paste

For flooding: add enough water so that the consistency is pretty runny

* Note: Royal Icing is extremely forgiving.  If you find you've added too much water and the icing is too runny, just add more powdered sugar.  Vice versa if your icing is too thick.