Festive red white and blue star-spangled cookies that are perfect as a patriotic Memorial Day or 4th of July celebration dessert.
I made these pretty, red white and blue marbled cookies over Memorial Day Weekend. I know, obviously it would have been best if I could’ve gotten them to you before Memorial Day, but I’m late to everything and I thought that they at least still would be worth sharing for the Fourth of July (which, by the way, is now scarcely a month away from us… how did that even happen?!).
If you’re a regular follower (thank you, I love you), you might recognize these cookies and the technique from my marble heart cookies or my galaxy cookies. I hesitated to even re-share them, but with how popular those recipes have been in the past, I thought some festive, patriotic tweaking was in order.
And just look at them! I (oh-so-humbly) declare that they are the most gorgeous, beautiful Fourth of July cookies I’ve ever seen, with their whorls of red, blue and white (don’t they look a little watercolor-esque to you?), their silver star spangles, and a light sprinkle of luster dust glitter (there are Amazon links to all of the materials just below the recipe).
I highly, highly recommend using gel food coloring for these. With gel, a little goes a long way, and the color comes out much more vibrantly. With standard liquid dyes, red coloring tends to appear as more of a pinkish shade when combined with the white glaze, and we want this to be a bright, vibrant, distinct red.
Take care when you’re swirling your dyes together that you don’t over-mix them, otherwise you’ll end up with some purple-y hues in your cookies. It’s not the worst thing that can happen, but the goal is to stick to red white and blue for these.
Another note, please don’t overdo it on the dye. Remember, these are red, white and blue, so we want the white glaze to shine through as well. Too much dye will also make these cookies taste like food coloring rather than the soft, buttery, vanilla-glazed sugar cookies that we’re aiming for.
With those notes in mind, this marble/swirl glaze technique is really, really easy to pull off. When I shared my Galaxy cookies, I shared a lot of step-by-step photos that I hoped would be useful. You can refer back to those, but this time, instead of step-by-step photos, I included a video right above the recipe so that you can see exactly how the glaze technique is done.
Enjoy!
(Full recipe is below the video)!
Star-Spangled Cookies
Red, white, and blue star-spangled cookies are perfect for the 4th of July!
Please see just below the recipe for a list of recommended tools for this recipe with links to Amazon, including cookie cutters, gel food coloring, silver star sprinkles, and disco dust
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened (226g)
- 3/4 cups sugar (150g)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 large egg yolk
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (295g)
Marble Icing Glaze
- 3 cups powdered sugar sifted (415g)
- 3 Tablespoons light corn syrup
- 3-4 Tablespoons milk
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon almond (or other, preferred) extract optional
- gel food coloring I used "red red" and "electric blue"
- silver star sprinkles There's an Amazon link for these just below the recipe, though I was able to find them cheaper at my local cake shop!
- luster dust/disco dust Optional, there is also an Amazon link for this below the recipe
Instructions
Cookies
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Preheat oven to 350F.
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In KitchenAid mixer or with electric hand-mixer beat your butter until well-creamed.
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Add sugar to the mixing bowl and beat with the butter until well combined (about 30 seconds).
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Stir in vanilla extract and salt, stirring until well-combined, and scrape down the sides of the bowl using a rubber spatula to ensure ingredients are well-incorporated.
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Add egg yolk and beat until combined
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With mixer on medium-low speed, gradually add flour until well-incorporated (you will definitely need to scrape down the sides and the bottom of the bowl several times for this, as the mixture is fairly dry and crumbs tend to settle at the bottom of the bowl).
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Transfer dough to clean surface and use your hands to form it into a cohesive ball.
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Flatten into a disk (about 1" thick), cover with clear wrap, and chill for 15 minutes.
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Once dough has chilled, transfer it to a clean, lightly floured surface and use a lightly floured rolling pin to roll out to about 1/4" thickness.
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Lightly flour your cookie cutters and cut out your shapes, transferring them to ungreased cookie sheet.
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Once you have cut out all of the shapes that you can, be sure to re-combine the scraps and roll out and cut out again to get the maximum number of cookies from your dough.
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Bake on 350F for 10-12 minutes (longer if you are using larger cookie cutter) and allow cookies to cool completely before dipping in chocolate.
Marble Icing Glaze
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In a large bowl, combine sifted powdered sugar, 3 Tbsp milk, and light corn syrup. Whisk until smooth. If mixture is too dry, add additional milk, one teaspoon at a time until mixture can be stirred.
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Stir in extracts.
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Glaze should be thick, to test that it is the right consistency drop a few droplets on top of a test cookie. If the glaze remains stiff, it needs to be thinned. If it runs off the cookie, it is too thin and needs more powdered sugar. If it settles down smoothly, it is just right.
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Divide glaze into four small bowls.
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Working with one bowl at a time, use a toothpick (a different toothpick for each color) and dip it into the food coloring bottle and then into the glaze. You want a small dot of food coloring (see video).
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Drag a toothpick through the food coloring and glaze until it is prettily swirled/marbled.
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Holding your cookie at the base, dip the surface of each cookie into the glaze (take a look at your first cookie -- are you satisfied with the pattern? Adjust whorls with additional food coloring as needed).
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Once the first bowl runs out or the colors become too muddled together from dipping, move onto your next bowl of food coloring (you will probably need to stir first before adding your coloring, as the surface may have begun to harden).
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Repeat steps 5-7 until all cookies have been dipped. Allow them to harden at least 30 minutes (may take longer) for glaze to set. Enjoy!
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Keep uneaten cookies in an airtight container at room temperature.
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These cookies are gorgeous! Thanks for sharing the recipe, Sam!
Thank you so much, Deb!! I’m glad you like them, thank you for commenting! 🙂
These are perfect for 4th of July!! And it’s never too late for red, white, and blue!
Thank you, Jordan!!
Will the glaze set/harden/dry so that these can be stacked on top of each other without making a mess?
Definitely, but they may need to set a few hours or overnight to harden completely.
Are the star sprinkles or luster dust hard (on the teeth when you bite into the cookie)?
No, very easy to bite through, in fact you likely won’t even notice them, the stars are almost papery and delicate in texture. I hope that helps!