Indian Republic Day Cookies

Jan 25, 2014, Updated May 07, 2023

Lemon Sugar Cookies decorated in Indian colors

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I made these sugar cookies on occasion of India’s 64th Republic Day : )

As a child, we would get ready early on 26th Jan and sit in front of the TV to watch the Republic Day parade. I haven’t seen it for so many years now but I’m sure it’s as fabulous as ever. My most favorite part of the parade used to be the air show when fighter jets would fill the sky with the Indian tri-color. Good old memories!

Anyway coming back to these cookies, these are simple sugar cookies which have been flavored with lemon extract and decorated with royal icing. I’m quite new to cookie decoration and still learning about it so please excuse me if these don’t look too perfect. But honestly I loved decorating these cookies, it was a lot of fun, I could have done this all day!

Most sugar cookie recipes call for chilling the dough for 3-4 hours. I actually baked half of the dough immediately and put the rest in the fridge for 3 hours. I didn’t find much difference between the two, so from next time I might just bake all the cookies immediately. I will share the recipe for royal icing too once I get a hang of it. I’m still trying to figure out the various royal icing consistencies.

Wishing all Indians a very Happy Republic Day!

Yield: Around 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients

All purpose flour: 3 cups

Butter: 1 cup (2 sticks, at room temperature)

Granulated white sugar: 1.5 cup

Egg: 1, large

Lemon extract: 2 tsp

Vanilla extract: 1 tsp

Salt: 1/2 tsp

Steps

1. In a bowl, sift together all purpose flour and salt. Set aside.

2. Cream together butter (at room temperature) and confectioners sugar using paddle attachment of your stand mixer or hand mixer for 2-3 minutes.

3. Add egg and lemon and vanilla extract and mix.

4. Start adding the flour mixture slowly till all is well incorporated. You will know it is done when most of it comes together as a dough (sticks to the paddle).

5. Wrap the dough with plastic cling sheet and chill for 3-4 hours or overnight. This step is optional, you can make the cookies right away too.

6. Preheat the oven to 400 F degrees.

7. Roll the dough on floured surface to 1/4 inch thickness. Use more flour for dusting if the dough sticks to the floor.

8. Cut into shapes using cookie cutters.

9. Bake for 6-8 minutes at 400 F degrees. Mine were done in exactly 6 minutes. The cookie should be taken out just when the edges start to get brown.

10. Let them cool completely on wire rack before decorating. It’s best to decorate the cookies the next day.

11. Store them in an airtight container.

Tips

* Chilling the dough is not mandatory. I didn’t find much difference between cookies that were baked immediately and those that were baked after chilling the dough for 3 hours.

* Use any flavoring you want: vanilla, almond, lemon, pineapple etc.

* You can substitute confectioners sugar with granulated white sugar. It should work well.

* It’s best to decorate the cookies when they are a day old.

* Keep a watch on the cookies while they are in oven. These one are soft so I took them out around 6 minutes. In case the cookies look brown, you have over baked them. Also you can bake them for some more time if you want crunchier cookies.

* Make sure that the butter that you use is at room temperature.