Holiday Stars

Cooking Instructions

Heat oven to 350°F.

Knead together dough and flour until smooth; knead in zest. Roll out on lightly floured surface to 1/8-in. thickness.

For solid cookies, use cookie cutters to cut out 3 7/8-, 2 3/8- and/or 1 1/2-in. star shapes. Place on ungreased baking sheets and bake 8 minutes for medium and large stars, 6 minutes for small stars, or until just starting to brown around edges. Cool cookies on sheet 1 minute, then remove to wire racks to cool completely. Reroll scraps only once and repeat cutting and baking.

For starlight mint–center cookies, you’ll need baking sheets lined with nonstick foil. Cut out 3 7/8-in. stars. Place on lined baking sheets. Cut 2 3/8-in. stars from centers of the larger cookies. (Cutouts may be baked separately on ungreased baking sheets or rerolled once to make more candy-centered stars.)

Bake 6 minutes, until just starting to brown around edges. Remove from oven. Place starlight mint in center of each cut-out cookie. Return baking sheet to oven and bake 4 to 5 minutes, until candy is melted. Cool completely on sheet, then peel cookies off foil.

To decorate cookies: Divide Decorating Icing between 2 bowls. Tint 1 red. Spoon some of the white and red icings into separate sturdy ziptop bags. Thin remaining icing in bowls with drops of water until spreadable. Keep covered when not using.

Snip tip off a corner of one of the ziptop bags. Pipe outline on cookies. Let outlines dry about 5 minutes. Dip brush into thinned icing; spread to piped border.

While wet, sprinkle some cookies with decorations. Pipe lines of alternate color onto wet icing on other cookies and pull a toothpick through while icing is still wet. Let dry at least 2 hours. Store airtight at cool room temperature with wax paper between layers up to 1 week.

Decorating Icing: In a large bowl with mixer on low speed, beat 1 lb confectioners’ sugar (3 1/4 cups) and 1/4 cup Just Whites (powdered egg whites found in your store’s baking section) until combined. Add 1/3 cup water; beat until blended. Increase mixer speed to high and beat 8 minutes or until icing is very thick and white. Makes 2 1/2 cups.