Baby Shower Cookies - Take Two

Once again I offered to take sugar cookies to a baby shower, but this time it was for my newest Great-nephew, Baby Elijah.  You know how they say, "Practice Makes Perfect"?  Well, I'm thinking they were on to something.  Now my second attempt at making fancy cookies like the amazing creations I see online weren't anywhere near "perfect", but by tweaking the icing recipe a bit, they were one step closer than my first attempt.

What I did differently this time was a) added corn syrup to the Royal icing recipe (it's supposed to make it shine) and b) (I think this is super important)... I sifted the powdered sugar.  I didn't have a sifter when I started, so I used this little plastic sieve about the size of a 1/4 cup measuring cup and over an hour, gently tried to sift 3-1/2 cups of powdered sugar.  My Hubby picked me up a sifter while he was out that morning but not before I had wrestled my way through the hard way.

Sifting the powdered sugar made a huge difference to the texture of the icing.  It seemed to have a nicer glean and consistency, but if truth be told, it still didn't look like the cookies in the pictures online.  I guess more practice is in the future to "perfect" this even more!   And I still can't seem to get the right consistency to "flood" fill with the icing after they are first piped.  Hmm.  Better luck next time I'm thinking!

Anyways... here is the final product from my Baby Shower cookies ~ take 2!