Home » Kitchen » 4th of July Cookies Recipe

4th of July Cookies Recipe

You don’t normally hear from me on a Sunday, but I am just popping in to quickly wish my friends here in the United States a happy 4th of July and leave you with a little something to finish your festivities with a ‘Bang!’

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

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. The inspiration for these Patriotic Cookies came from Martha Stewart, though I use my favorite sugar cookie recipe.

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.  

Easy recipes and instructions to make and decorate sugar cookies to celebrate the 4th of July. Could easily be altered to use your favorite colors.

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.

Gif showing how to paint red white and blue cookies.

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. 

'Mixed Metals' Decorated Sugar Cookies

Sugar Cookies

Bon Apppetit
A basic, but delicious and reliable sugar cookie recipe
4.78 from 9 votes
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 35 minutes
Cuisine American
Servings 40 cookies
Calories 64 kcal

Ingredients
  

  • 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
Well, what did you think?Please rate this recipe here! It helps other readers and also helps to support our site.
Easy recipes and instructions to make and decorate sugar cookies to celebrate the 4th of July. Could easily be altered to use your favorite colors.
Fourth of July Sugar Cookies

Flood Icing

the Kitchn
An icing perfect to flood cookies...not for edging cookies
No ratings yet
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 15 minutes
Total Time 15 minutes
Cuisine American
Servings 1 cups
Calories 428 kcal

Ingredients
  

  • 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
Easy recipes and instructions to make and decorate sugar cookies to celebrate the 4th of July. Could easily be altered to use your favorite colors.

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!

Thanks again for spending a few minutes of your busy day with me today.

Please know that I welcome each and every comment that comes my way. If you want to make sure you don’t miss future content, pop your email in the beige box up on the right or click here.  I usually send out 2-3 emails a week, so I won’t inundate your inbox…believe me, I’m sensitive to an overflowing email inbox!

By subscribing to Nourish and Nestle, we will only use your email address to send you emails (no more than 2-3 per week) that will keep you up to date with the latest news and content on the site.  In addition, you will have access to my growing library of knit & crochet patterns, as well as other printables.  This library will continue to grow, so check back often.

(Just a reminder…when you do subscribe, you will receive a confirmation email that has a link you need to click on to be fully subscribed. If you don’t see this email, please check your spam/junk mail folder)

And please know that you can unsubscribe at any time by emailing me or clicking on the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of all of our emails.

You can access all the products I refer to in all of my posts on my Nourish and Nestle Amazon Page. You can access it here.

So, if you’d like to get in on the ‘subscriber benefit’ action, simply subscribe to Nourish and Nestle here or using the form on the right sidebar. It’s towards the top a bit. I have sent all my subscribers the link to the Subscriber Benefits Library. If you missed it or misplaced it, drop me a line.

Until next time…

Hugs,


Thanks for making my day by SHARING!!

Similar Posts

6 Comments

    1. Hi Cathy…thanks for stopping by and thanks for watching my little video. It was fun to make and the cookies were so yummy to eat! They were quite a big hit at our party.
      Wishing you a great weekend.
      Hugs, Lynn

    1. Thanks Mary…they were quite a hit at our party and I’m looking forward to making similar ones for other occasions, in different colors! And I’m honored that your daughter, the pastry chef, may be interested in my little cookies! Hugs, LYnn

    1. Hi Linda…I hope you get a chance to make them sometime soon. They were fun to make and tasty to eat too.So glad you were able to stop by today. Hugs, Lynn

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating