Western Sugar Cookies

I had mentioned in my previous post that I had been busy baking up a storm...and below you will find out why. I made cookies, lots and lots of Sugar Cookies to be exact. You see one of my best friends got married in Austin a couple weeks ago. Their rehearsal dinner was at the SaltLick in Driftwood, Texas (outside Austin). If you live near and haven't been...go...its soo yummy! Their BBQ is out of this world and the sauce is amazing!

Anyways the bride had told me she wanted cookies at the rehearsal and of course I jumped at the chance to help. After discussing we decided on western cookies to go with the Texas theme for the wedding weekend. She had originally wanted to use the cookies as place settings but after struggling with the seating chart for the wedding, we chose to set these on the tables as favors.

Now all of this was sounding great and then I realized the size of wedding and number of people attending the rehearsal was near 300. Inside I was freaking out but of course I told her no problem :)

A little over a week before the wedding, I started making the cookies, a batch per night. After cooling completely, I put into freezer safe Tupperware and froze them until the day I decorated them. Note: When pulling them out of freezer to decorate, allow to come to room temperature before removing from the container.

The shapes I used where: Cowboy boot & hat, cactus, longhorn, Texas, horseshoe, and lastly horse head.

Here is how my kitchen looked for several days....

This is the horses and hats drying...

Horseshoes just about done and the Texas' minus the stars.

I couldnt get this picture to load the right way...but this was the only shot I got of the finished horse, so I included it anyways!

Same here with the boots...I dont understand why the picture wont turn? Anyone know how to fix this?

The Texas's I think were my favorite...

I wrapped each cookie individually and tied with white and red ribbon. I had great plans of taking photos of this step, but it was so late when I finished...I forgot :(

I additionally have no photos of the cookies on the tables at the dinner, but I did snag a photo of a friends purse she filled for cookies for later on that night. Haha...guess they were good then huh?

And this is one of my best friends, Sharon, about to eat her cookie on the bus leaving the dinner. She will probably kill me for posting this photo...but I thought it was cute!

For the cookies I used the recipe that is originally from Bridget at Bake at 350 that I blogged about here and here. This time however I made a few changes. Instead of using almond extract I used both vanilla extract and vanilla bean paste. I just love seeing the black speckles in the cookies. I believe I used about a teaspoon of each. I know, I am sorry about not having the exact amounts but after that number of batches you sort of lose count!

For the royal icing this time I actually used Ateco Meringue Powder. I think it taste better than any of the other brands I have tried to date. Also since I didnt used almond extract with the cookies, I skipped it here too and opted for just vanilla extract. I used the recipe I blogged about here.

All in all I think these cookies turned out pretty good. It was time consuming but I had a blast doing it and learned so much along the way. I look forward to my next venture with sugar cookies and royal icing :)

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