“Nothing is supposed to be white except whip cream.” In the bakery that is — that’s how Seattle Kitchen host Thierry Rautureau feels about what you see, smell and taste in the bakery.

Both Rautureau and his co-host Tom Douglas worry that when folks bake their sugar cookies at home, they don’t bake them long enough.

The cookies should be somewhere in the color range of light brown to brown. Douglas recommends using extra egg yolk in the recipe to get the color just right.

For flavor, Rautureau suggests brightening your pallet by adding a little zest of lemon or orange to the dough.

When your perfectly golden brown sugar is ready for a topping, Douglas raves about the royal icing recipe from his new Dahlia Bakery cookbook. “It takes (the cookies) to another level.”

Seattle Kitchen can be heard on KIRO Radio Saturdays at 2-4 p.m. Available anytime ON DEMAND at MyNorthwest.com.