Marbled sugar cookies
Colourful, cute and a biscuit with the wow factor! Look no further than these adorable sugar cookies. If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with food colouring, so you might be a bit surprised to see something quite so colourful on this blog. I’m a strong campaigner for not replacing flavour with colour, which is where rainbow cakes and colourful bagels frustrate me - I want bakes to taste as good as they look and I get a little bit irritated when they don’t. You can absolutely make these biscuits with a plain or naturally coloured icing, but I can’t deny that the colourful marbled topping is super fun to create (and the biscuits taste GREAT too!).
When I was a child, I used to adore paper marbling as a craft. It was magical, dipping a plain piece of paper into water swirled with oil and food colouring, and pulling out a masterpiece (or so i’d call it…) You get that exact same feeling of magic with these biscuits; no two will be the same! I’ve been obsessed with this technique since seeing Sana Sodawala create her marbled masterpieces, so have really enjoyed putting my own spin on it!
The biscuit
Now, these cookies have few ingredients, but each are essential to their success. The base cookie needs to be strong enough to withstand a dip into thick icing, and hard enough that it will remain crisp once the icing has set. This is easily achieved in a simple shortbread, but one made by creaming butter and sugar rather than rubbing it into the flour. This creates a more malleable dough that won’t crumble as easily, but still has a buttery, short texture. I’ve added lemon zest into the dough for a lovely fresh flavour, which works beautifully with the sweet icing.
A note on ingredients:
Flour: Must be plain (all purpose) - we aren’t looking for a rise in our biscuits
Butter: I use salted, as I love the flavour. If you use unsalted, be sure to add 1/2 tsp table salt to the dough. Oh, and it MUST be at room temperature! You’ll have a hard time mixing if it’s not!
Sugar: You want something fine textured, so caster sugar (superfine) is ideal here
Egg: My biscuit dough uses one egg yolk, but be sure to keep the white as you’ll need it to make the royal icing! A no waste recipe is the best kind of recipe!
Lemon: Just the zest required for the biscuit, but keep the lemon as we will need a little juice for the icing too.
The icing
Royal icing is the only type of icing which sets firm, which is why it is key to these biscuits. Water icing is simply too runny, and will never set hard. Royal icing contains egg white, which might make you feel uneasy, but I promise it is super simple.
My recipe for royal icing using a fresh egg is below. I’d only recommend this if you can get British Red Lion stamped eggs (90% of all British eggs have this certification). These hens have been vaccinated against salmonella, so it is safe to consume them raw. If you are outside of the UK, I’d recommend reading up on your eggs and finding appropriate ones, or following another method.
If you’re not keen on baking with raw egg, you can make royal icing using powdered egg white that has been pasteurised (follow the packet instruction to make up 1 egg), or you can buy purpose made royal icing sugar. This is a great product, which is icing sugar and powdered egg white mixed for you so you just need to add enough water to make a thick paste.
How to marble
What you are all wanting to know! The good news? It’s very hard to go wrong. Start of with some good quality food colouring. I use Wilton Gel Food Colours as they are, in my opinion, the best on the market. You only need a very small amount to get great results.
First, make sure your icing is the right texture to dip. When you drizzle a spoonful of icing back into the bowl, it should take 10 seconds to flatten out and merge with the rest of the mixture. If it disappears too quickly, try adding more icing sugar to thicken. If it is too stiff, add a little more water to loosen.
Use skewers to add dots of gel food colouring to the top of the royal icing (i use three colours, purple, yellow and pink). Gently swirl together to create a marbled effect (but don’t go too far or it will look muddy). Dip each biscuit face down into the icing, then carefully lift out, making sure the excess drips back into the bowl. Twist your wrist quickly, to ‘catch’ the drip on the biscuit (this might take a few tries to perfect!), then leave to set. Keep topping up the colour; you’ll probably need to add more after every 5 biscuits.
Royal icing takes around 12 hours to set fully, so be sure to leave them overnight if possible, before you package. They make great gifts and post well too!
Marbled sugar cookies
Makes around 30 biscuits
Ingredients:
For the biscuits:
100g caster sugar
175g butter
1 egg yolk
300g plain flour
1 lemon, zest only
For the icing:
1 egg white
150g icing sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
A few tsp water
Gel food colouring
Method:
Start by making the biscuit dough. Combine the soft butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl until smooth (they do not need to be light and fluffy), then add the egg yolk (save the white for the icing) and mix again.
Add the lemon zest and flour to the dough, then continue to mix until a soft dough forms. Use your hands to briefly knead and shape into a ball, then wrap in clingfilm and chill for 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 160oC and line two large baking trays with baking parchment. Lightly flour your work-surface and roll the dough out to the thickness of a pound coin. Cut out your desired shape (I’m using a 6cm fluted cutter) and place onto a baking tray. Reroll any scraps to get as many biscuits as you can.
Bake the biscuits for 12-14 minutes, until just beginning to turn golden at the edges. They won’t feel crispy but will firm as they cool. Allow to cool completely on the tray.
To make the royal icing, use an electric whisk to whip the egg white to soft peaks. Add half the icing sugar and whisk to combine, then add the remaining sugar and lemon juice. Whip for 8-10 minutes, until really stiff.
Once the icing is stiff, begin to add the water, 1 tsp at a time, to loosen the icing. You are looking for a consistency where a trail of icing takes 10 seconds to disappear back into the bowl. Once you’ve reached your desired consistency, set to one side.
Using a skewer, dot a small amount of various coloured gel food colourings onto the top of the icing, then swirl together. Dip a biscuit face down into the icing, shake off any excess and then leave to set on a cooling rack. Repeat with the rest of the biscuits, topping up the colour in the bowl as needed. Allow to set for at least 12 hours, preferably overnight, before enjoying!
