Happy Friday! Halloween is quickly approaching and I’ve found my bakes getting a little bit spookier. For this week, I took inspiration from The Nightmare Before Christmas and am excited to share Sally’s Sugar Cookies! Inspired by Sally and her colorful dress, these soft and chewy sugar cookies are stitched together with different colored cookie dough!
Disclaimer: Links in this post are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn a very small amount from qualifying purchases at no cost to you. Thank you for supporting my blog!
These cookies are pretty easy to make as it’s just one cookie dough divided into four sections. To make the dough, first beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg, vanilla, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt and beat until combined.
Divide the dough into four sections and dye the sections of dough orange, purple, pink, and teal by kneading a few drops of gel food coloring into each section. In the end, you’ll want one color per dough section. For these cookies, I used Wilton’s Neon Colors Set as it had the exact colors that I wanted. I’d definitely recommend wearing some food safe disposable gloves when you do this to protect your hands.
After dying the dough, wrap each section in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 15 minutes. Preheat the oven and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. After the dough has chilled, take some pieces of each color of dough and roll into a ball. Aim for a 1-inch ball, but it can be a bit bigger. Place the dough balls on the prepared baking sheets, a couple inches apart. Chill the dough for another 15 minutes before baking at 350 F for 9-12 minutes or until the edges are just starting to brown. Let the cookies cool for two minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
While the cookies are cooling, make the royal icing for the stitches. If you don’t want to make the icing, you could also use a small tube of store bought black gel icing.
First combine the powered sugar and meringue powder in a small bowl. Add the warm water and beat until smooth. Beat on high speed until the icing is smooth and glossy and reaches stiff peaks. Add desired amount of black gel food coloring and beat until fully combined.
Transfer icing to a piping bag and pipe small stitches along the cookies where the different colors come together. For these, I used a tipless piping bag so I could just cut off a small pieces of the end of the piping bag.
Enjoy Sally’s Sugar Cookies!
Sally’s Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
Sugar Cookies
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup light brown sugar
- 1 egg
- ½ teaspoon cream of tartar
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup + 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- orange gel food coloring
- pink gel food coloring
- teal gel food coloring
- purple gel food coloring
Icing
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 ¼ teaspoons meringue powder
- 2 tablespoons warm water
- black gel food coloring
Instructions
Sugar Cookies
-
In a medium bowl, beat butter, granulated sugar, and light brown sugar together until light and fluffy.
-
Add egg, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, and vanilla and beat until combined.
-
Gradually add in the flour, beating until combined. Divide the dough into four sections.
-
Dye the sections of dough orange, teal, pink, and purple by kneading a few drops of gel food coloring into each section. Aim to have one color per dough section.
-
Wrap each section of dough in plastic wrap and chill for 15 minutes.
-
Preheat the oven to 375 F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
-
Take some pieces of each color of dough and roll into a ball. Aim to have a 1-inch ball, but they can be a little bigger. Place the dough balls onto the prepared baking sheet, a couple inches apart.
-
Chill dough balls for 15 minutes before baking.
-
Bake for 9-12 minutes or until the edges are just starting to brown.
-
Let cookies cool for two minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Icing
-
In a small bowl, whisk together the sugar and meringue powder.
-
Add warm water and beat until smooth.
-
Beat on high speed until the icing is smooth and glossy and reaches stiff peaks.
-
Stir in a few drops of balck gel food coloring.
-
Transfer to a piping bag.
Assembly
-
Pipe stitches along the cookies where the different colors come together.