Heidi's Mix: Red, White And Blue Cookies

These red, white and blue cookies are bold, bright and perfect for your upcoming Independence Day Celebrations. They are also simple to make and can be made days in advance. To serve, just arrange them on a platter and enjoy the party.

Here's how to make them:

Bake a batch of round sugar cookies. For my favorite tried and true recipe, click here.

The cookies after baking.

Make a batch of royal icing. Leave 3/4 of the icing white and divide the remaining 1/4 into small bowls and tint one red and one blue. Thin all of the icings by adding a teaspoon of water at a time, to 12 to 15-second flood consistency. This is icing that settles back into place in 12 to 15 seconds after you draw through it with the back of a spoon. Place the white icing in a pastry bag fitted with a #3 tip and place the red and blue icing in bags fitted with #2 pastry tips. You need to have all of your icings ready to go at once. Click here for my favorite royal icing recipe.

Work on one cookie at a time. Outline the cookie with the white icing.

Fill in the outline with more white icing and give the cookie a gentle shake to help the icing settle. You can also use a skewer or scribe tool to help evenly distribute the icing.

Now it's time to decorate. While the flood icing is still wet, add your red and blue embellishments. Here I added some simple red stripes.

To the red stripes you can add blue stripes going in the same direction.

Or, you can add blue stripes going in the opposite direction.

For this cookie I added more red stripes going in the opposite direction and some blue dots.

To make a chevron design, add red and blue stripes and then draw through them with a skewer, toothpick or scribe tool, going back and forth in opposite directions. Be sure to wipe your tool off after each swipe to keep the design clean.