Red, White & Blue Tie Dye Cookies

Red, White and Blue 'Tie Dye' Cookies - a fun and easy treat for Independence Day!

Last night's hype party for the upcoming Moms Who Make It Conference was a success if I say so myself! The moms got to mingle and chat, kids got to play at Gardner Village and decorate star shaped sugar cookies and have a great time.

As you can see from my son's smile, he loooooves sugar cookies. This is our favorite way to decorate them because (1) he can do it himself and (2) no piping for me to mess up!

Besides, the effect is so pretty!

He also dearly loves getting the scraps to roll out at home and play with.

Lauren of SuperMom Central helping decorate cookies

The kids seems to get a kick out of swirling their frosting colors together and then dipping their cookies to decorate them - before eating them while the frosting was still wet.

While the kids dipped and ate some cookies, the moms got to enjoy some chocolate fudge cookies with cinnamon chips, cinnamon italian sodas, fresh strawberries, and chocolate hazelnut scones with blackberry jam - all provided by Tiffany, the fabulous owner of Lorken Food Finery. In fact, the scones, jam, and cinnamon syrup for the sodas are all items available at her store!

All of the 'Sexy Six' Backstage Bloggers were present - I just didn't get pictures - but it is always so fun to hang out with these ladies. They are so inspiring and such a joy! Speaking of inspiring ladies who are a joy, it was so great to see Emily and Quinn again!

Perhaps, my most favorite part of the evening though was the fact that Tiffany gave all of us a discount on items purchased that night at buy one, get one half off. I can't wait to tell you more about what I scored! I am sooooo excited! Besides, how could you not be happy shopping in a store as cute as this!

Vanilla Roll-Out Cookies

Source: Dorie Greenspan on Epicurious

• 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups all purpose flour

Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl at medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add sugar and salt and beat until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add egg; beat until well blended, about 1 minute. Reduce speed to low and beat in vanilla. Add flour and beat on low speed just to blend. Gather dough into ball; divide in half. Form each half into ball and flatten into disk. Wrap disks separately in plastic and chill until firm, at least 4 hours. DO AHEAD: Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep chilled.

Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 350°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Working with 1 disk at a time, roll out dough between 2 sheets of waxed paper to 1/8-inch thickness for smaller (2-inch) cookies and 1/4-inch thickness for larger (3- to 4-inch) cookies. Using decorative cookie cutters, cut out cookies and transfer to prepared sheets, spacing 1 inch apart. If cookies become too soft to transfer to baking sheets, place in freezer on waxed paper for 5 minutes before continuing. Gather scraps, roll out dough, and cut more cookies, repeating until all dough is used. If not icing cookies, decorate with sprinkles or other sugar toppings, if desired.

Bake 1 sheet at a time until cookies are firm on top and golden around edges, about 10 minutes for smaller cookies and up to 14 minutes for larger cookies. Cool completely on rack. Decorate with Royal Icing, then sprinkles or other sugar toppings, if desired. Let stand until icing sets. DO AHEAD: Can be made 4 days ahead. Store between sheets of waxed paper in airtight containers.

Royal Icing

Adapted from Dorie Greenspan on Epicurious

3 1/4 cups (or more) powdered sugar, sifted
4 teaspoons meringue powder + 4 Tablespoons water = 2 egg whites (easier to work with and safer for kids)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Assorted food colorings (optional) - I use gel food colors to get the vibrant shades seen here

Using electric mixer, beat 3 1/4 cups powdered sugar with meringue powder and water until thick and shiny, adding more powdered sugar by tablespoonfuls if mixture is too thin to spread, about 3 minutes. Add vanilla. Divide icing into portions, if desired, and add different food coloring to each. Cover until ready to use.

DIRECTIONS FOR RED, WHITE & BLUE 'TIE DYE' COOKIES:

Divide icing into three bowls - keeping about half of the frosting white and dividing the other half into two portions. Color each of the other portions, one blue and one red.

On a small plate, place a large spoonful of white icing. Using separate spoons for each color, drizzle a little of each of the other colors on top of the white. Using a toothpick, swirl the frostings together a bit to get a pretty marbled effect.

Dip a cookie 'face down' into the frosting without moving it. Gently lift the cookie straight back up, set aside on a rack to set - or just eat while the frosting is glossy and wet. Enjoy!