Easy Marbled Christmas Sugar Cookies Recipe

Sugar Cookie Dough

1. Mix the butter (1 cup) and powdered sugar (1 ½ cups) in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment at medium-high speed until they are well combined and creamy. This process is called “creaming.”
2. Add the egg (1) and vanilla (2 tsp) and mix until combined.
3. Sift flour flour (3 cups), salt (¼ tsp), and baking powder (¼ tsp) together in a separate bowl.
4. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients little by little. Mix at low speed until well combined. Make sure you scrape the sides of the bowl so it is all mixed in. For high altitude, if dough seems to dry, add a few teaspoons of water to the dough, mix to combine. Pat the dough into 2 discs and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill!
5. Place the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. It’s important to chill so that your cookies do not spread.
6. Preheat the oven to 350° F (175° C) - High Altitude 375°F (190° C). Add some parchment paper onto your baking sheet and set aside.
7. Once chilled, on a lightly floured or powdered sugared surface, roll the dough to ¼ inch thick and using your favorite cookie cutters, cut out desired shapes, placing them on prepared baking sheet.
8. Bake for 9 to 10 minutes or until the edges turn golden.
9. Allow them to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack. Cool completely before icing.

Marble Royal Icing

1. Mix your powdered sugar (2 ½ cups), meringue powder (1 ¼ tablepsoons), 3 tablespoons of water and desired flavor extract (½-1 teaspoon) with a stand mixer using a whisk attachment. Beat the icing ingredients together on high speed for about 2 minutes. Place a spoon or knife into the icing, and lift it up. It should drizzle down and smooth out in about 5 - 8 seconds. If it looks too thick, add more water little by little because it could easily get too thin. If it's too thin, add a bit more powdered sugar. The icing should be about a flooding consistency.
2. Separate the frosting into three bowls and using a toothpick, add a drop of coloring onto it and swirl it on the white icing. If you are using two colors, repeat the same with another color in that bowl. You will notice the first color in this case, I used green, and as you swirl you will notice different shades across the icing. Continue by adding your second color onto the toothpick, in this case red, and do the same. Swirl it around the icing. ​​
3. Keep in mind that the icing will harden quickly, so make sure to cover anything not being used right away.
4. Lay a piece of parchment paper or wax paper under a wire rack, this will catch the drips on the iced cookies.
5. Dip the top of the cookie in the royal icing mixture. Make sure all of the edges are covered. Lift the cookie carefully and let the extra icing drip off the cookie by holding it over the bowl. Place it on a cooling rack to set, but keep in mind some of the icing might drip a bit.
6. Continue to do it for the color you like in each of the bowls. In the other one, I only used blue coloring on the white icing, and the last one I only used red coloring. Repeat the process for the cookies, until you have finished them all.
7. Let the cookies sit until the frosting has set for about 2 hours.