Spring makes me think of Sugar cookies. In the springtime, I remember going into the neighborhood bakery and picking out fun Sugar cookies. It was always so pretty. Now I like to make my own spring cookie flowers and I decorate them in the colors of spring, yellow, green, pink, blue and purple.
I start with a simple recipe and then when they are baked, I frost them in the colors of spring.
Sometimes I like to roll out my cookies and cut out shapes. Sometimes I just want to make round cookies by spooning the dough onto the cookie sheet.
For all my cookies, I love to think about the magic of cooking.
Sometimes the magic is simple. For my sugar cookies, I turn them over when I am ready to frost them and I frost the back of the cookie. This gives me a very flat surface to decorate. They look so wonderful that it feels like magic!
Sometimes the magic is science. If you “cream” your sugar and butter together it creates air bubbles that helps your cookies rise! Creaming is mixing the sugar and butter together so they are creamy. It takes time to mix the two together so they are nice and smooth. It is the mixing that creates air bubbles.
Here is my Sweet Spring Sugar Cookie recipe I use when cooking with my dear friend Dazzle the dragon.
1 stick of Butter ( or Margarine, almond butter), Measures 1⁄2 cup
Soften butter, then cream together with sugar.
Add 1 egg
Add 1 tablespoon of Vanilla
Mix together.
Now, add 1 1⁄2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1⁄2 teaspoon of salt.
(a little science-adding the salt activates the baking powder)
Now blend in 2 cups of flour until the batter forms a ball.
The cookies need to rest and chill for an hour before we roll, cut and bake.
I love to use this time to color. I try to imagine what my cookies will look like and I draw the shapes and colors while I wait for the dough to be ready.
Dazzle always draws blue cookies, so we use a lot of blue.
What are your favorite colors!
Then the fun part of rolling, cutting out shapes and baking!
Sometimes Dazzle and I are covered with the powdered sugar we use so the dough isn’t sticky and we laugh and laugh.
The kitchen smells so good.
Roll out your dough on a powdered sugar surface until 1/4 inch thick. Cut with cookie cutters into fun shapes or form into round cookies Place on ungreased cookie sheets about 2 inches apart.
Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes.
The science of this depends on your cookies sheet, If it has a rim, it takes longer, if all flat, less time. Once your cookies have cooled, you can eat them or decorate them.
I make the frosting with 3 cups of confectioner’s sugar and 2-3 tablespoons of almond
milk. Sometimes I add a little Karo syrup which makes it shiny. Then I add color!
I love to use the food I have to make colors.
For my frostings I will use the juice from my strawberries for pink, the juice from
blueberries for blue and spinach water for green. My hardest color was yellow until I
tried some of my spices, Turmeric and saffron are beautiful yellows. Sprinkled in lightly,
they do not change the flavor of the icing.
So that is how I make my Spring Cookies! I hope you have fun baking your own Spring Sugar cookies!
