Best Holiday Sugar Cookies and Royal Icing

Best Holiday Sugar Cookies and Royal Icing. The Secret to Making the Best Holiday Sugar Cookies and Royal Icing & Joe Poeschl Interview.

Tech Leader Joe Poeschl Bakes Up Community Innovation. Host Charlie interviews Joe Poeschl, Executive Director of the Milwaukee Tech Hub Coalition. They talk about his Milwaukee roots. He earned dual degrees at Marquette and MIAD. Joe co-founded the Commons and grew the regional tech ecosystem.

They discuss the Coalition’s role in Wisconsin Tech Month, innovation districts, and building inclusive tech-powered economic growth across southeast Wisconsin.

The episode highlights community partnerships and strategies to attract and keep talent. The show concludes with a hands-on cookie-decorating segment. Joe shares a family sugar cookie recipe. He demonstrates royal icing and decorating tips. He invites the audience to join and taste the results. Frivolity ensues.

You can listen to the audio podcast version of this interview and cooking show here –

Decorating the bottom of a sugar cookie is definitely unconventional—but there are a few niche reasons why some bakers do it:

🍪 Reasons Some Decorate the Bottom of the Best Holiday Sugar Cookies

• Smoother Surface: Occasionally, the bottom of a cookie is flatter and smoother than the top. This is especially true if the top has puffed or cracked during baking. This can make it easier to apply icing or edible images.
• Aesthetic Choice: Some decorators want a perfectly domed top. They prefer to keep it untouched for visual appeal. The bottom is used as a hidden canvas for decoration or messages.
• Structural Stability: For sandwich cookies, like linzers or filled cookies, decorating the bottom of one cookie is beneficial. This bottom becomes the inside and can help with adhesion or flavor layering.
• Experimentation or Mistake Recovery: Beginners accidentally decorate the wrong side. Sometimes they try it as a creative experiment. They want to see how it affects the final look and texture.

Best Holiday Sugar Cookies Ingredients

• 1 Cup Sugar
• 2 Sticks Softened Butter
• 2 Eggs
• ⅓ Cup Milk
• 1 Teaspoon Vanilla
• 1 Teaspoon Salt
• 1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
• 4 Cups Flour

Blend sugar and butter in a mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy (1-2 minutes). Slowly add wet ingredients (egg, milk, vanilla), until incorporated. Add the small dry ingredients (salt, baking soda, baking powder) and do a light mix. Slowly incorporate your flour while pulsing the mixer. Don’t overmix. 

Roll out the dough to a thin layer. Use plenty of flour to keep it from sticking to the countertop and rolling pin. Cut out with cookie cutters. Transfer the cookies to a baking sheet. Bake at 350º for 8-10 minutes, or until a very light golden brown at the edges. Remove from the baking sheet and transfer to a cooling rack right away. 

Will make 4-6 dozen, depending on the size of the cookie. 

Best Holiday Sugar Cookies and Royal Icing

• 2 Tablespoons Meringue Powder
• 6 Tablespoons Water
• 2⅔ Cups Powdered Sugar
• Food Coloring
• Flour, cooling racks, large baking trays, rolling pin,

Place the meringue powder and water in a large mixing bowl. Whip them with a whisk attachment until foamy. This should take about 3 minutes. Add the powdered sugar and whip on medium speed until very stiff and thick (should hold a stiff peak). Tint as desired with food coloring. Thin with extra water, a drop at a time, to get the desired consistency. Add to piping bags and decorate the back side of your completely cooled sugar cookies.  

Royal icing is a smooth, glossy icing. It hardens as it dries. This property makes it perfect for detailed decorating on cookies, cakes, and gingerbread houses. Here’s a quick breakdown of what makes it special:

🎨 What Is Royal Icing?

• Ingredients: Typically made from powdered sugar, egg whites (or meringue powder), and water
• Texture: It starts smooth and fluid, then dries to a firm, candy-like finish.
• Uses: It is ideal for intricate designs, piping, and flooding cookies. It is also used for building edible structures, like gingerbread houses.

🧁 Why Bakers Love It

• Precision: It enables sharp lines and intricate patterns.
• Durability: Once dry, it holds up well for packaging and showing.

🛠️ Tips for Success

• Use meringue powder if you prefer not to work with raw egg whites.
• Adjust water content to control thickness—less water for piping, more for flooding.
• Let decorated items dry completely before stacking or packaging.

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If you like this recipe, Best Holiday Sugar Cookies, you will also enjoy trying another one. It is our recipe where we foraged for BLTs

Cooking Secrets for Men in the News

We have been fortunate enough to get positive publicity for our website, YouTube channel, and Social Media presence. Here are a few examples:

Our series, Cooking with Milwaukee Community Leaders, is featured in the “Milwaukee Magazine” May 2023 edition, “Civic Gastronomy”. Click here to read the full article.

A few days later, they were discussing me on the radio. It is a local Foodie show,  “This Bites” on Radio Milwaukee 88.9, featuring dining critic Ann Christenson from Milwaukee Magazine and Radio Milwaukee’s resident foodie Tarik Moody. My series, Cooking with Milwaukee Community Leaders, is in the show’s first few minutes.

“Cooking Secrets for Men” is on the list of the Top 20 Men’s Cooking Websites on the Internet. You can read that article here. See where we rank for Men’s Cooking Websites.

Cooking Secrets for Men is now on the list of Milwaukee’s Top 50 Foodie Influencers on Instagram.

In The News

We were featured in a Redfin article! Check it out here: Designing the Perfect Kitchen for Home Cooks.

Shepherd Express (Milwaukee) article on our Cooking with Milwaukee Community Leaders show – you can read that article here

Good Counsel HS (My Alma Mater) Magazine article about Cooking Secrets for Men – you can read that article here.

Meet Charlie DeSando – featured in the “Voyage Tampa” article, available to read here.

CanvasRebel Magazine Interview, which you can read here.

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Best Holiday Sugar Cookies