Nothing can be simpler than this 4-ingredient shortbread cookie recipe. The recipe for the shortbread cookie is below. If you would like to decorate them with icing, there is a note at the end of the recipe giving you some tips on how to do that. I decorated them like footballs, as you can probably tell. We started out flooding the cookies with brown icing, but then decided that would just be too much sugar for our mouths to handle, so we decided to just do an outline from there out. Then, we did the laces in the Bronco's color (orange) and the Sea Hawk's color (bright green). Hope you like them!
Shortbread Cookies
- ½ cup (1 stick) butter
- ¼ cup white sugar
- 1⅓ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp. vanilla
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line one baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the vanilla and mix until well combined. Reduce the speed to low and slowly add the flour. Mix until the dough starts to come off the sides of the bowl. If the dough is not coming together, add about half of a teaspoon of water and wait to see if it starts to come together. Repeat until the dough is the intended consistency.
Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut out desired shapes. Place the cookies on the parchment baking sheets. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until firm to the touch and possibly slightly golden.
If you would like to make some icing to decorate your cookies with, simply mix confectioner's sugar and very small amounts of water until the icing is somewhat thick, yet still spreadable. You can also add some vanilla extract to give it some flavor, just keep in mind the color change (if you are planning on dying it a darker color it shouldn't matter, but if you are going to dye it yellow, you'll probably have to skip the vanilla extract). If you are planning on using an icing bag, you will want the icing to be thicker than normal so it does not flood off the cookie when decorating. Once you reach the consistency you like best, you can divide the icing up in bowls and dye with food coloring for some fun cookie decorating!
The amounts of confectioner's sugar and water you want to use really depends on how much icing you want to end up with. However, for a start, I would suggest about 3/4 cup of powdered sugar and add water by the half-teaspoon or less until all the confectioner's sugar is combined.