Happy St. Patrick's Day from Paris! Frank usually observes St. Patrick's Day back home by celebrating at our local Irish Pub, Conor O'Neills, starting with a traditional Irish breakfast. This year since we are out of town I knew Frank would be a little bummed about not being at Conor's so I thought that I would make him some shamrock cookies before we left and surprise him with them on St. Patrick's Day. 
To make the cookies I made up a batch of sugar cookie dough, rolled it out and then cut out shapes with a shamrock cookie cutter. For best results, I find it is important to let your dough sit in the fridge for a few hours before rolling it out. To make sure I have evenly baked cookies I make sure to have the dough rolled out an even thickness because any thinner part will brown too quickly. I also keep a close eye when I am baking and pull the cookies out of the oven as soon as I see a little browning on the edge.
After the cookies cooled I decorated them with royal icing. I tinted the icing with green coloring and then piped an outline around the shamrock's edge. I let the outline icing set and then used water to thin the royal icing for filling in the design. To thin the icing I add the water in small amounts until a drip of icing will disappear back into the bowl. It's important not to thin the icing too much otherwise the icing will be hard to control. Once the icing is sufficiently thinned I put it in a piping bag, trace just inside my outline and then fill in the rest of the design. To finish off the cookies I sprinkled green sugar on top of them and then tapped off the excess when the icing was dried. Simple, easy and tasty! I hope Frank likes them!
