These sugar cookies are frosted with icing to look like slices of watermelon. A year-round favorite, the addition of string pressed into the undersides of the cookies while they bake turns them into Christmas-tree ornaments.
Use your favorite recipe for rolled sugar cookies. (This is a good one: https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/roll-and-cut-sugar-cookies).
After you roll out the chilled dough, cut out the cookies in circles using a round floured cookie cutter or the rim of a glass. Cut the cookies in a half (perhaps with a few cut into quarters) and place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or grease the sheet. (Here’s what to do next if you want to use them as ornaments.*)
Bake according to the to the recipe’s directions until the edges begin to brown. Remove for the oven and allow to cool.
While the cookies are cooling, make the frosting. (You might try this recipe for royal icing; https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/royal-icing-cindy-mushet. For amazing authenticity, instead of adding the 1 tablespoon or more of water called for, add 1 tablespoon or more of strained watermelon juice).
Divide the frosting into several bowls. Add green food coloring to one, mixing until it resembles the color of watermelon rind; add red food coloring to another mixing until it resembles the color of watermelon flesh; if you want yellow watermelons, too, add yellow food coloring to another bowl mixing until it’s the color of yellow watermelon.
Decorate the half-circles (and quarter-circles, if you made them) to look like watermelon slices. Add a few quartered raisins (or currants) if you want the slices to have seeds.
*Christmas-tree ornaments – The Joy of Cooking provides instructions for making the cookies into Christmas-tree ornaments. Cut thin red or green ribbon or string into 3- to 4-inch lengths, fold them in half, and press the loose ends into the undersides of the unbaked cookies. Press the ends firmly to make sure they won’t loosen. Bake following recipe instructions.
Recipe tested by Ellen Ficklen; email questions to hello@watermelontimes.com