Recipes: Sugar Cookies and Icing

MTM's Sugar Cookies
1 cup butter (room temp)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
3 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder

In electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla - beat until combined. Add flour, baking powder until smooth. Divide dough in half and wrap in plastic wrap - store in fridge for approximately 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 350. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll out and cut dough on floured surface - Put cookies back into fridge for 10-15 minutes to prevent spreading. Bake cookies for 10 minutes or so (depends on size of cookie).

Royal Icing
With electric mixer, beat 4 cups sifted icing sugar and 3 tbsp meringue powder until combined. Add 1/2-3/4 cup warm water and beat on med-high speed until very glossy and stiff peaks form (5-7 min). Add 1/2 tsp vanilla or almond extract if desired. Add more icing sugar as needed. Proper consistency is when you lift the beater and the ribbon of icing that falls back into the bowl remains on the surface of the icing for a few seconds before disappearing.

Instead of using food colouring, you could try one of these natural ingredients. I will say up front that I have never tried them, but I am truly curious.

Light Purple - Small Quantity of Purple Grape Juice
Violet Blue - Small Quantity of Red Onions Skins (boiled)
Blue - Canned Blueberries, Red Cabbage Leaves (boiled), Purple Grape Juice
Green - Spinach Leaves (boiled)Grass
Yellow - Orange or Lemon Peels (boiled), Carrot Tops (boiled), Ground Cumin (boiled), Ground Turmeric (boiled)
Brown - Strong Coffee Instant Coffee
Orange - Yellow Onion Skins (boiled)
Pink - Beets, Cranberries or Cranberry Juice, Raspberries, Red Grape Juice
Red - Lots of Red Onions Skins (boiled)

MTM's royal icing dilemma:

I don't like the taste of Royal Icing. It must be the icing sugar that I don't care for, I'm not sure. Anyhow, I was bound and determined to make a royal icing with something more than icing sugar and water in order to make it taste more like frosting, but harden like royal icing.
I failed!
The cookies looked good and tasted good, but the watered down frosting was very hard to work with and it never hardened. You can see photos over at my Circle of Life blog.