These red white and blue cookies have made several appearances at our 4th of July and Memorial Day parties. When mom told me that we might be a few desserts short this year, I knew exactly what I could whip up.

 And for my friends outside of the US, you could easily tailor these 4th of July cookies to celebrate with your special colors.

Table of Contents

Choose your favorite sugar cookies recipe for these 4th of July cookies, or use the one I use from Bon Appetit.  I find it is reliable, delicious and very easy.

Once your sugar cookies are prepared, then it’s just a matter of preparing your royal icing. For this recipe, you want your icing to be on the thin side…the consistency of cream or syrup is ideal.

N&N Tip: To decorate your 4th of July Cookies, use sandwich ziplock bags with a corner cut out and insert your pastry tips in the end.  

Decorate Your Patriotic Cookies

I flood my cookies with the white icing and then draw bulls eyes with red, blue and a combination of both. I used a #2 and and #3 tip for my two different color icings.  If I had two #2 tips I would have used them for both colors as I think the #3 is just a tad too big.

Then the fun starts…start dragging a toothpick out from the center of the cookie…starting at the center-most bull’s eye out to the edge of the cookie. Wipe your toothpick off after each swipe and repeat this process, pulling out from the center. The GIF below makes it look like I went from one outside end to the other…but I didn’t.  Definitely only go 1/2 of the circle radius for each swipe. You can stop there, or you can then reverse your ‘pull’ and then come back in from the edge to the center. 

Sugar Cookies

Bon Apppetit

A basic, but delicious and reliable sugar cookie recipe

4.78 from 9 votes

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Cook Mode

Prep Time 20 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Total Time 35 minutes mins

Cuisine American

Servings 40 cookies

Calories 64 kcal

Equipment

• R&M International 1951 Christmas Ornament Cookie Cutters, Assorted Designs, 6-Piece Set
• Silpat Premium Non-Stick Silicone Baking Mat, Half Sheet Size, 11-5/8 x 16-1/2
• Kitchenaid Professional 600 Stand Mixer 6 quart, Sugar Pearl (Renewed)

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• 10 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• Sprinkles/decorations
• Royal Icing

Instructions

 

• Using an electric mixer, beat butter in a large bowl at medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes.
• Add sugar and salt and beat until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
• Add egg; beat until well blended, about 1 minute.
• Reduce speed to low and beat in vanilla.
• Add flour and beat on low speed just to blend.
• Gather cookie dough into a ball and divide dough in half.
• Form each half into a ball and flatten into a disk.
• Wrap disks separately in plastic wrap and chill until firm, at least 4 hours.
• Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep Chilled.
• Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 350'F.
• Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
• Working with 1 disk at a time, roll out the dough between 2 sheets of waxed paper to 1/8" thickness for smaller (2-inch) cookies and 1/4" thickness for larger (3- to 4-inch) cookies.
• Using decorative cookie cutters, cut out cookies and transfer to prepared sheets, spacing 1 inch apart.
• If cookies become too soft to transfer to cookie sheet, place in freezer on waxed paper for 5 minutes before continuing.
• Gather scraps, roll out the dough, and cut more cookies, repeating until all dough is used.
• If not icing cookies, decorate with sprinkles or other toppings as desired.
• Bake 1 sheet at a time until cookies are firm on top and golden around edges, about 10-12 minutes for smaller cookies and up to 14 minutes for larger cookies.
• Cool completely on a wire rack.
• Decorate with Royal Icing, then sprinkles or other toppings as desired.
• Let stand until icing sets.
• Can be made 4 days ahead.

Nutrition

Serving: 1gCalories: 64kcalCarbohydrates: 8gProtein: 1gFat: 3gSaturated Fat: 2gPolyunsaturated Fat: 1gCholesterol: 12mgSodium: 17mgSugar: 3g

Keyword cookies, sugar cookies

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Flood Icing

the Kitchn

An icing perfect to flood cookies...not for edging cookies

No ratings yet

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Cook Mode

Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Total Time 15 minutes mins

Cuisine American

Servings 1 cups

Calories 428 kcal

Equipment

• Kitchenaid Professional 600 Stand Mixer 6 quart, Sugar Pearl (Renewed)

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
• 3-4 tablespoons warm water start with 3 and add as needed
• Food coloring optional

Instructions

 

• Place powdered sugar in your mixer (I like my wisk attachment, but use what you like)
• Mix lemon juice into warm water.
• Add water/lemon juice mixture to powdered sugar and blend
• It should be the consistency of syrup.
• Divide into containers and color as desired

Video

Notes

Adapted from The Kitchn

Nutrition

Serving: 1gCalories: 428kcalCarbohydrates: 110gSodium: 5mgSugar: 108g

Keyword cookies, flood, icing, royal icing

Well, what did you think?Please rate this recipe here! It helps other readers and also helps to support our site.

Once you’ve finished decorating the cookies, set them aside to dry and keep them in an air tight container until you serve them…preferably while the  fireworks are going off!

Patriotic Sugar Cookies

Wishing you and your families a wonderful week, and if you are interested in more cookie recipes, check out these oatmeal chocolate chip ice cream cookie sandwiches!

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