I thought that I would try something different today, and practice my penmanship. On mini-tiny Scrabble cookies. Cute, fun and different and if you have friends who are into Scrabble or Words with Friends, these might be cute and cupcake or cake toppers. I’d made these a couple of years ago for Valentine’s Day, but have updated my sugar cookie recipe since then.
As an aside, when I was in high school, I had my wisdom teeth out. They were pretty impacted and the whole surgery turned out to be a bigger ordeal than planned, so I was out of school for quite some time. My sister at the time was dating an exchange student from Uruguay; a great guy named Eduardo. He came over every day after school and played Scrabble with me because I was so bored. Whenever I see a Scrabble board, I think of him.
Ingredients
For the Cookies
1 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon orange juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
For the icing
2 large egg whites
8 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
3 cups confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted
black food coloring
Directions
Using a piece of graph paper, I would highly suggest figuring out the words that you want to write, in the Scrabble pattern. Alternatively, you can just make all the letters from the Scrabble set, but I don’t think that would quite work out to your benefit. Count up the tiles that you will need and how many of each letter.
To make the tiles: in a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in egg, orange juice and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
Preheat oven to 400F. Line baking sheets with silpat or parchment paper.
Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Using a square 3/4 x 3/4 inch cookie cutter, cut out the number of tiles required, plus a few extra. If you don’t have a square cookie cutter, you can use a ruler and a pizza cutter to cut 3/4 x 3/4 inch squares. Place cookies 1-2 inches apart on the prepared cookie sheets. Bake 6 to 8 minutes. Cool completely on wire racks.
To make the icing: in the bowl of your electric mixer, beat the egg whites with 2 tablespoons of the lemon juice until combined. Add the sifted powdered sugar and beat on low speed until combined and smooth. The icing needs to be used immediately or transferred to an airtight container as royal icing hardens when exposed to air. Split the batch in half, reserving one half and covering with plastic wrap. Add the remaining 6 tablespoons of lemon juice to the icing to make the “white” icing looser.
To decorate: using a food-safe paintbrush, paint each of the tiles completely white. Alternatively, you can simply dip the top side of each cookie tile in the icing, but make sure to let any excess run off. Let tiles dry, preferably overnight but at least 2-3 hours. To the reserved icing, add a significant amount of black food coloring — you want this to be completely black — and mix until completely combined. Using a #1 tip, carefully letter the tiles.
