Fish-Shaped Sugar Cookies with a Painted Finish

These buttery, fish-shaped sugar cookies offer a playful and sweet twist on the Italian Christmas Eve tradition known as the Feast of the Seven Fishes. The classic feast showcases seafood in countless forms, but here the homage is purely whimsical: cookies cut into fish silhouettes and hand-painted in bright, Mediterranean-inspired colors, each one a tiny celebration of the Italian coast. Decorating them is as enjoyable as eating them, which makes the recipe a natural fit for a holiday project or a creative afternoon in the kitchen.

Info

• Cook time: 1 hour
• Total time: 5 hours 30 minutes
• Yield: 35 to 50 cookies

Ingredients

Cookies

• 2 1/2 cups cake flour, plus more for dusting (see Cook’s Note)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
• 1 large egg

Royal Icing

• One 1-pound box confectioners' sugar
• 2 tablespoons meringue powder

Decorating

• Assorted gel food coloring in various shades (blues, yellows, reds, greens)
• Black gel food coloring
• Edible markers, optional

Instructions

1. Make the cookie dough: Sift the cake flour, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, beat the butter and granulated sugar with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in the vanilla and egg until incorporated. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture in 2 batches and beat until just incorporated. Divide the dough between 2 pieces of plastic wrap and shape each into a disk. Wrap and refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour. (The dough can be frozen for up to 1 month; thaw overnight in the refrigerator before rolling.)
2. Roll and cut: Line 2 baking sheets with parchment. Working with 1 disk at a time, roll out the dough on a floured surface, dusting with flour as needed, until 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. Cut out shapes with fish-shaped cookie cutters and arrange them 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheets. (If the dough becomes too soft as you work, return it to the refrigerator until firm.) Gather the scraps and refrigerate until firm; re-roll once to cut out more cookies. Chill the cutouts for 30 minutes.
3. Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.
4. Bake: Bake, rotating the baking sheets from top to bottom and front to back halfway through, until the cookies are slightly puffed and just golden, 13 to 15 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheets, then transfer to racks to cool completely before icing.
5. Make the royal icing: Whisk the confectioners’ sugar and meringue powder in a medium bowl until evenly combined. Whisk in 5 tablespoons cold water until the icing is smooth, drizzles from the whisk when you lift it and holds the lines for 5 to 10 seconds, about 2 minutes. Add up to 1 tablespoon more water if needed.
6. Prepare piping bags: Transfer 1/2 cup of the icing to a piping bag fitted with a small round tip and tie the top of the bag. Set aside. Whisk the remaining icing with more water, 1 teaspoon at a time, until the consistency of thin pancake batter; this will be the flooding icing. Fill a second piping bag (with no tip) with the flooding icing and tie the top of the bag. Make sure no air gets into the icing to prevent crust from forming inside the bag.
7. Ice the cookies: Pipe the stiffer icing along the border of the cooled cookies and set aside at room temperature until set, about 10 minutes. Fill in the cookies with the flooding icing, then use a toothpick to gently move it until it touches the border. Let dry until hardened and set, at least 2 hours, up to overnight.
8. Paint the cookies: Put a drop of each desired color into separate small bowls. Using a different small paintbrush for each color, dip the clean paintbrush in water, then mix with the gel food coloring of choice to create a more fluid, brighter paint. Paint vertical curved or scalloped lines along the body of the fish, alternating between 2 colors (dark blue and bright blue, yellow and orange, pink and yellow, etc.). For the tail, either alternate colored dots or create horizontal lines to mimic a fish tail. Use black gel food coloring and a fine brush to paint a small dot for the eye. Allow painted cookies to dry at room temperature for 1 to 3 hours before serving.

Notes

When measuring flour, spoon it into a dry measuring cup and level off the excess. (Scooping directly from the bag compacts the flour, resulting in dry baked goods.) The decorating can also be done with edible markers, but we like the rustic look of a paintbrush. If using gel food coloring, the less water-diluted the food coloring, the longer it will take to dry.