Brightly colored leaf sugar cookies

As I peer outside my office window, my eyes are met with a dreary gray sky, dead, lifeless trees and cold, icy rain pouring down.

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Photo credit: Luciana of Lulu’s Sweet Secrets

As much as I love the upcoming holiday season, I’m just not ready for winter. I miss the days of crisp, bright red, orange and yellow leaves and the chilly, yet comfortable, breeze that came with autumn. Since I can’t go back in time to mid-October, I’m going to recreate this beautiful season in my kitchen with these gorgeous leaf-inspired sugar cookies!

A radiant batch of these beautiful cookies will be the perfect mental distraction from the oncoming cold weather that December brings. Plus, these gorgeous sugar cookies make great holiday gifts! This sugar cookie recipe inspired by All Recipes.

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Leaf sugar cookies

Yields: About 30 cookies

Ingredients:

For cookies:

• 1-1/2 cups butter, softened
• 2 cups white sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

For flood and piping icing:

• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 4 tablespoons meringue powder
• 6 tablespoons water
• Red and yellow food coloring

Extra:

• Wilton Color Mist food color spray
• Toothpicks

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl, mix butter and sugar until creamed. Slowly add each egg, mixing in between each addition. Add almond extract.
2. In a smaller bowl, sift flour, baking powder and salt together. Add in slowly to the butter mixture, mixing well.
3. Once mixture is combined, remove dough from bowl and place on a large piece of floured wax paper. Carefully wrap dough up, make sure it’s completely covered. Place in the refrigerator and chill for at least one hour.
4. One dough is chilled, place it on a floured, flat surface. Roll out dough to about 1/4-inch thickness. Using leaf shaped cookie cutters, cut out about 30 cookies. Bake cookies for about eight minutes until slightly browned, and let cool completely.
5. While cookies are chilling, prepare icing by mixing all the ingredients on low speed until well blended. Divide icing in half, and then split each half into a few different bowls and create your colors.
6. For all over color, fill a pastry bag with colored icing and carefully squeeze over each cookie to “flood” with icing. Using a knife, smooth icing out and remove excess. To create piping (for the leaf veins), scoop icing into a pastry bag fitted with a #4 round tip. Carefully outline the edge of the cookie, leaving no gaps and finish piping leaf veins. Let cook for about 15-30 minutes.
7. To create a misted, multi-colored look (like the cookies above), let cookies sit overnight, or until icing is completely dry. Using your Wilton mist spray cans, slightly mist each cookie to create a gradient look!

More cookie decorating tips

How to decorate cookies
Cake and cookie decorating
10 Tips for cookie decorators