Squiggle Cookies

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These bright and colorful squiggle cookies are inspired by Jessswan Art on Instagram! I came across her squiggle art and fell in love with the colors and how they looked! The freeform abstract aspect of it inspired me to try to turn them into cookies! I used a simple sugar cookie dough with purple, blue, and green food coloring for the base cookie dough. I used a clay technique where I created a large log, cut it up, and stacked the logs to roll out a cool design!

I added mango extract to flavor the royal icing, but feel free to use vanilla, peppermint, almond, or any other extract you like to add a little bit of flavor to the cookie! With all the neon colors, it was giving me tropical vibes, so mango felt the most appropriate.

I love how each squiggle cookie was unique! You can totally skip the icing and just bake the cookies as is, but I feel the squiggles just give the cookies so much pizzaz!

Here are some quick tips for making squiggle cookies!

Make sure your dough is chilled but not frozen! You want it cold enough to mold and handle.
Lightly flour your work surface and keep flouring it as you need. The dough is semi-soft dough, so it can start getting sticky as you handle it and warm it up. Just use enough flour to keep it from sticking everywhere.
Freeze the logs of dough, so you have nice, clean slices. If the cookie dough is soft, the colors will smear as you cut them.
Don’t stress if they aren’t perfect circles! Use a cookie cutter to do a cookie scoot them into circles!

Squiggle Cookies

Author: Milk and Cardamom
Total Time: 2 hours 10 minutes
Yield: 12 1x
Diet: Vegetarian

Print Recipe

Description

Make little buts of edible art with this squiggle. Makes 24 cookies

Instructions

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a small mixing bowl. Set aside.
Add butter and sugar in a stand mixer bowl and mix for 2 minutes on high speed. Add egg and vanilla and mix for 1 minute on medium speed. Add in the dry ingredients and mix until the flour is well incorporated.
Split the dough into 3 equal portions. Add food coloring to each portion and mix until the color is even. Wrap each portion in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 1-2 hours.
Split each colored dough into 2 portions so it’s easier to work with. Work with half of each colored dough, lightly flour your work surface and one of the colors into a thick log about 3 inches in diameter and 4 inches wide. Lightly flour the work surface again and press your second color into a rectangle 4 inches wide and 9 inches long. Wrap the dough sheet around the dough log and roll until it’s smooth. Press out the last portion of colored cookie dough and wrap that around the log. Flour your work surface as needed, and roll out the log until it’s 12 inches long. Cut the log into four 3-inch sections, stack the four portions together so that it’s 2×2, and gently squeeze to bring the dough together. Roll the large log out until it’s 8 inches long, and wrap it in plastic wrap. Repeat with the leftover dough. Freeze the dough for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet pan with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
Cut the dough into 1/2 inch cookies and place the cookies onto the prepared baking tray 2 inches apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the cookies JUST start to take on color. You don’t want them to brown! Coo the cookies on the pan before icing.
To make the royal icing, mix the powdered sugar, meringue powder, water, and mango extract in a small mixing bowl. Mix until you have a thick icing. Mix in your food coloring and spoon the icing into a piping bag or sandwich bag. Snip off a small hole and pipe continuous squiggles over each cookie. There is no wrong or right way to do this- just have fun! Add sprinkles if you like, and then let the icing set before serving!