Wedding-Inspired Sugar Cookies

With my boyfriend's cousin (and my good friend) Ali's wedding right around the corner... I have wedding fever! Her colors are a sea-glass light blue & green, which is what inspired the look of these cookies.

I have always been a little weary of royal icing, because of the fact that I'm such a perfectionist. So I decided to face my fears and took on the daunting task of making beautiful royal icing sugar cookies. It was a very long process... lots of refrigerating, rolling, re-refrigerating, baking, cooling, frosting, waiting, more frosting, etc. But I think it was well worth it because they look and taste GREAT!

A special thanks to HungryHousewife, which is where I found this recipe, and step by step directions.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened 1 cup sugar 1 egg 1 1/2 teaspoon almond or vanilla extract or a mix of both 3 cups ap flour 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 350 30 minutes before baking the cookies. 2. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. 3. Add in the eggs and the extract and beat to incorporate. 4. In a separate bowl sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. 5. Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until combined.

6. Divide the dough into 2 portions and roll to 3/8" thick in between 2 sheets of parchment paper and chill in the fridge for 2 hours.

7. Remove the dough and cut your desired shape. Place the formed cookies back in the fridge for 10-15 minutes. Take the scraps and re roll them to 3/8" in the parchment paper and re chill befor cutting out again. 8. Bake your cookies on an un greased cookie sheet for 8-12 minutes depending on the thickness of your cookie. 9. Cool on cookie sheet for 2 minutes before removing to a cooling rack. 10. Cool completely before icing.