Shamrock Sugar Cookies are a delicious festive treat to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. These beautifully decorated sugar cookies taste amazing!
Shamrock Sugar Cookies are decorated with this easy recipe for Royal Icing. To make these festive cookies I used decorating styles such as a brush embroidery cookie decorating technique, tartan technique and a stained glass effect.
Tartan pattern
Stained Glass decorative cookies
Pumpkin spice sugar cookies taste fantastic, not that cardboard taste you often get with sugar cookies. Cardamom is also a great spice to use in sugar cookies. I decorated with royal icing making some with a stained glass effect and some with a brush embroidery technique. My inspiration for the brush embroidery technique comes from Amber Spiegel of Sweetambs.com, a most amazing cookie decorator!
Shamrock Sugar Cookies
Print Pin RatePrep Time: 1 hour
Cook Time: 9 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 9 minutes
Servings: 36
Calories: 151kcal
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups softened butter
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 1 vanilla bean opened and seeds scraped out
- 2 eggs + 1 extra yolk
- 2 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice or 2 tsp. Cardamom
- 3 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp salt
- green lifesaver candies for stained glass cookies
Instructions
- Sift together flour, salt & pumpkin spice.
- Using an electric mixer beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy—5 minutes.
- Add vanilla bean, mix well then add eggs. Beat to combine.
- Slowly add the flour mix until the dough is smooth.
- Separate the dough and wrap it in 3 separate pieces. Place in the fridge and chill for at least 30 minutes.
- When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line several cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- Flour a work surface and roll the disk out to 1/4 inch thick.
- Cut out Shamrock cookie shapes for brush embroidery technique.
- For Stained glass look - cut dough with large circle cookie cutter (make sure Shamrock cookie cutter fits into circle). Then cut shamrock inside circle. Fill each Shamrock shape with crushed green lifesavers. Cookie sheet MUST be lined with parchment paper or cookies will stick to cookie sheet.
- Bake for 8-10 minutes. (edges just starting to brown)
- Cool completely on the cookie sheets before moving.
- Decorate with Royal Icing.
Notes
Royal Icing
1 lb icing sugar (powdered sugar)
5 tbsp meringue powder
1/2 cup water
1 tsp vanilla Beat together on medium speed for about 7 minutes. Icing will be very thick. To base cover icing thin icing with a teaspoon of water at a time until flows easily.
Let icing harden completely before decorating with brush embroidery technique.
1 lb icing sugar (powdered sugar)
5 tbsp meringue powder
1/2 cup water
1 tsp vanilla Beat together on medium speed for about 7 minutes. Icing will be very thick. To base cover icing thin icing with a teaspoon of water at a time until flows easily.
Let icing harden completely before decorating with brush embroidery technique.
Nutrition
Calories: 151kcal | Carbohydrates: 18g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 8g | Saturated Fat: 4g | Cholesterol: 29mg | Sodium: 135mg | Potassium: 19mg | Sugar: 8g | Vitamin A: 250IU | Calcium: 6mg | Iron: 0.7mg
I like to use vanilla beans in my cookie recipes for exceptional vanilla flavour!
Measure all ingredients to make quick work of making cookies.
Beat together butter, sugar and vanilla bean until fluffy.
Add flour mixture a bit at a time until incorporated.
Divide into 3 equal disks, wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Roll dough to 1/4 inch thickness on well floured surface. Cut with your favourite cookie cutter.
Bake 8-10 minutes, just until edges start to brown. Cool completely before decorating.
Decorate with royal icing using your favourite technique. Check out this link for easy to follow instructions to decorate cookies using Royal Icing click here!
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wow, beautiful cookies. thin icing to a 10 count, what is a 10 count?
Laureen: The brush embroidery on the shamrock cookies is superb!
Thanks Joan you are quite a great cookie decorator yourself.
G’day! I LOVE your cookies Lauren and you step by step really inspires me to do!
Pinned as part of sharing the love today too!
Cheers! Joanne
thank you so much Joanne 🙂
thank you Tara for dropping by and leaving a comment 🙂