Simple Sugar Cookies with Peppermint Icing

It just isn’t Christmas without a big batch of sugar cookies. Most of the year, I enjoy the traditional royal icing on my cookies, but I wanted to try something a little more festive with this batch. These peppermint-iced sugar cookies are like Christmas in your mouth! Slightly chewy (if you take them out of the oven in time), and bursting with peppermint flavor, they’re perfect with a tall, cold glass of milk.

 

For the sugar cookies, you don’t need to look any further than this Easy Sugar Cookies recipe. The only thing I do differently is that I add 2-3 teaspoons of vanilla extract to mine instead of the single tablespoon. I know… I have a serious problem with vanilla extract. You can never use too much, in my opinion! If you want to roll out the cookies and cut them into shapes, let the dough sit for a couple of hours in the fridge first.

Look over my cookie sheet. It’s used often and isn’t very pretty.

Let’s get to the good stuff…the icing. It isn’t truly royal icing–no egg whites involved. But it does harden nicely like royal icing, so that’s what I call it.

 

Once the icing is ready, just paint it on the cookies. For greater precision for painting cut-out cookies, use a piping tool. As you can see, I painted mine. My brush is ancient…and it’s not even an icing brush. I should really get some of those.

Add an extra zing of peppermint by crushing up some candy canes or peppermint candies to sprinkle on top. My husband crushed mine, and they turned out more like chunks instead of sprinkles, but he tried. 🙂

Make a batch of these tonight! Let the kids paint them for you.