I saw this cookie design online and as the timing was perfect, how could I resist? I used my Macadamia Nut Shortbread and a basic royal icing recipe. The cookies are delicious, timely and fun to make.

Oddly, I tried piping the blue circle inside the red one (center cookie) but they just didn’t look as good. I could only frost a couple cookies at a time or the flood/fill would dry before I could feather the colors.

I used these small squeeze bottles to pipe the required small amounts of icing. I find I have better control than if I use a piping bag.

4th of July Cookies 2023

Macadamia Nut Shortbread Cookies

INGREDIENTS
• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup macadamia nuts, finely chopped

METHOD

1. Beat the butter until smooth and add in the powdered sugar and vanilla. Gradually add flour then mix in the 1 cup of chopped macadamia nuts.
2. Transfer the batter to a sheet of parchment paper. Lay a second sheet over top and roll to 1/4-inch thickness. Place it onto a cookie sheet and refrigerate until firm.
3. Preheat oven to 300°F and remove dough from refrigerator.
4. Cut the cookies using a star cookie cutter. Re-roll the scraps and use as much as possible.
5. Place the stars onto a parchment lined cookie sheet, cover, and chill for 30 minutes.
6. Bake for 20 minutes until edges begin to brown.
7. Cool the cookies completely.

Royal Icing

INGREDIENTS
• 4 cups (480g) confectioners’ sugar, sifted
• 3 Tablespoons meringue powder (not plain egg white powder)
• 9–10 Tablespoons room temperature water

METHOD

1. Pour confectioners’ sugar, meringue powder, and 9 Tablespoons of water into a large bowl.
2. Using a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat icing ingredients together on high speed for ~2 minutes.
3. When lifting the whisk up off the icing, the icing should drizzle down and smooth out within 5-10 seconds. If it’s too thick, beat in more water 1 Tablespoon at a time.
4. The longer you beat the royal icing, the thicker it becomes. If your royal icing is too thin, just keep beating it to introduce more air OR you can add more confectioners’ sugar.

Assembly

1. Pipe a thin bead of white royal icing around the edges of the cookies and let dry.
2. Flood/fill 2 or 3 cookies and while still wet pipe a drop of red and a drop of blue in the center of the cookie.
3. Pipe a ring of red royal icing around the blue and white drops, then pipe a blue ring outside the red circle.
4. Use a toothpick to draw a line through the icing from the center to the tip of each star then leave to dry.