Easter Sugar Cookies

Okay, here's my confession.  "I haven't worked with royal icing since culinary school.  And I am not very good at working with it either!"  Glad I got that off my chest!  It's not that royal icing is particularly hard to work with, I'm just better at plain old buttercream.  Plus, I will take a sugar cookie topped with almond, vanilla or lemon scented buttercream over royal icing any day!  So, you are probably wondering why I chose royal icing for these cookies in the first place.  Well, it's because I think royal icing can be really cute when done right and I wanted to practice and the kids and I were planning on bagging the cookies up(a mess with buttercream) to give their little friends an Easter treat.  Plus, I thought it would be genius to put a layer of lemon scented buttercream in between two cookies because let's be honest, although royal icing can look purty(the above cookies being an exception;) it will NEVER EVER taste as good as buttercream!

Here are the links to the sugar cookie and royal icing recipes I used.  And might I add that the tutorial for royal icing is brilliant!
Sugar Cookie recipe from Joy of Baking
Royal Icing recipe and tutorial from Browneyedbaker
Lemon Scented Buttercream by Kara
3/4 cup salted butter, room temp
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest of half a lemon
1-2 tablespoons milk for spreading consistency
Cream butter.  Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add vanilla and lemon zest.  Add milk(if needed) to get to smooth spreading consistency.

images by Kara