Your Easter baskets or dessert table will look super festive with these darling chicks and eggs from “Martha Stewart’s Cookie Perfection” (Clarkson Potter; $26). The iced lemon shortbread cookies are simply decorated with sanding sugar, sprinkles, mini chocolate chips and candy — easy for helpers with little hands.
Easter Chick Cookies
Makes 3 dozen
Ingredients
For the cookies:
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon coarse salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
½ cup powdered sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the icing:
3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (from 2 lemons)
1 to 2 drops yellow gel-paste food coloring
Decorations: Yellow fine sanding sugar, jumbo candy sequins, orange and yellow sprinkles, candy hearts, and mini chocolate chips, for decorating
Directions
Make the cookies: In a small bowl, whisk together flour and salt. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium-high, beat butter until fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add ½ cup powdered sugar, and continue to beat until pale and fluffy, occasionally scraping down sides of bowl, about 2 minutes more. Beat in vanilla. Gradually add flour mixture, and mix on low, scraping sides if necessary, until flour is just incorporated and dough sticks together when squeezed with fingers.
Shape dough into 2 disks and wrap each in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour.
Heat oven to 325 degrees. Roll out one disk to ¼-inch thickness. Cut out shapes using a 2½-inch tall egg cookie cutter. (To create an egg shape, pinch one end of a 2½-inch oval cookie cutter.) Transfer cookies to parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing them about 1 inch apart. Repeat with remaining disk. Reroll scraps and repeat.
Bake until firm and golden, 13 to 15 minutes. For flatter cookies, tap sheets on counter halfway through baking and again afterward. Let cool completely on wire racks.
Make the icing: Stir together the 3 cups powdered sugar and lemon juice. Tint with food coloring. Transfer icing to a pastry bag fitted with a small round tip (such as Ateco #1 or #2). Flood cookies with icing.
For the chicks: Dip an iced cookie in sanding sugar; let dry. Dot candy sequins with icing; overlap to create feathers. Use orange sprinkles for feet, a candy heart for a beak, and upside-down mini chocolate chips for eyes.
For the eggs: Lay orange or yellow sprinkles in a zigzag pattern halfway up an iced cookie. Sprinkle bottom with sanding sugar. (Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature up to 5 days.)
— From “Martha Stewart’s Cookie Perfection” (Clarkson Potter; $26)
