Food Beauty of Molly Yeh's Sugar Beet Sugar Cookies ,as seen on Girl Meets Farm, Season 6.
Recipe courtesy of Molly Yeh

Sugar Beet Sugar Cookies

Getting reviews...
  • Level: Easy
  • Total: 2 hr 25 min (includes cooling and setting time)
  • Active: 50 min
  • Yield: 8 beet cookies or 10 to 12 standard 3-inch cookies

Ingredients

Cookies:

Glaze:

Directions

Special equipment:
a beet-shaped cookie cutter; two piping bags fitted with 1/8-inch round tips
  1. For the cookies: Whisk together the all-purpose flour, almond flour, sprinkles, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl and set aside. Cream together the butter, granulated and powdered sugars and lemon zest in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until pale and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the egg and mix to combine, and then add the extracts and mix to combine.
  2. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, mixing until blended. At this point you can wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour or up to 2 days, or you can get going on rolling out your dough and cutting out your cookies immediately. 
  3. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats and set aside.
  4. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to a little less than 1/2-inch-thick, dusting with more flour as needed to prevent it from sticking to the work surface or rolling pin. Cut out the cookies using a beet-shaped cookie cutter, then use an offset spatula to transfer to a lined baking sheet, 1 inch apart. Re-roll scraps and cut out more cookies. Bake until the cookies are just thinking about starting to turn brown, beginning checking larger cookies for doneness at 12 minutes and smaller cookies at 10 minutes. Let cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, then carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 
  5. For the glaze: Mix together the powdered sugar, corn syrup (if using), vanilla, almond extract, salt and 4 tablespoons heavy cream in a medium bowl until smooth. It should be very thick but just thin enough that when you lift your spoon it falls off in smooth ribbons. If it's too thick, stir in more cream little by little, and if it's too thin, stir in a few more spoonfuls of powdered sugar until you get the right consistency. Fill a piping bag fitted with an 1/8-inch round tip with three-quarters of the glaze and decorate the white parts of the beets. Sprinkle with white sanding sugar. Mix the remaining glaze with a few drops of green food coloring, then transfer to a piping bag fitted with an 1/8-inch round tip and pipe on the leaves. Let set and enjoy!
  6. These will keep at room temperature in an airtight container for a good few days, but you can also freeze them once the glaze is dry and they'll stay fresher longer!

Cook’s Note

The corn syrup will make the glaze glossy. If you want to omit it, just increase the heavy cream by 2 tablespoons.