Independence Day Cookies

Happy Independence Day to all of my fellow American's this weekend!  If you are still looking for a fun treat to make with your kiddos, these patriotic tie-dye swirly cookies are a blast to make (and eat!).  I posted these last year and we still love making them.  You can get the recipe and instructions here.

I was recently contacted by Rebecca, an editor over at LilSugar (of PopSugar network fame) who asked if I would let them feature these cookies in their round-up of ideas for fun desserts for the holiday.  They have a lot of great, fun, kid-friendly ideas, so if you are still stumped you should head over there and see what they came up with.

I hope everyone has a wonderful, safe and very happy holiday!  I'd like to send out my heartfelt gratitude to all the men and women in our armed forces, and their families, for their contribution in keeping us safe to enjoy the privileges and freedom that so many are still denied.  I want to send a special thank you and round of much hugs and love to my brother who is in the Army and headed to Korea for a year after just recently returning from his second tour in Iraq. He always did want to be a Super Hero.  Mission accomplished.  Love you Bubba :)

Sparkling Sugar Cookies

Happy Valentine's Day! My kids love making sugar cookies for the holidays - every holiday really - and this is our favorite go to recipe for a slightly crisp sugar cookie that is still somewhat soft, delicious and retains shapes well. The recipe comes from Dorie Greenspan, so you know it is going to be good. You may remember these cookies from last Independence Day when we made tie-dyed stars. This Valentine's Day we also actually made Dorie's recipe for Chocolate Roll Out Cookies (links below for both recipes) as well and tie-dyed them with red and white royal frosting. The kids loved them and the cookies were really delicious! In fact, they were gone and passed out before I had the chance to take a picture of any of them.

Have a great day!!

Vanilla Roll-Out Cookie Recipe with sparkling sugars in red and pink

Chocolate Roll-Out Cookies

TWD: Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies

Thank you everyone for your nice get well wishes last week! I really appreciate the support and virtual hugs! We are all feeling a bit better around here finally and hope that it lasts for a little while. Hopefully that means I will be able to get a bit caught up on my blog reading as well!

We are back on track with this week's recipe for Grandma's All-Occasion Sugar Cookies, chosen by Ulrike of Küchenlatein. These cookies offered lots of fun options for what to do with them. You can add flavors in, slice and bake, roll and make cutouts to decorate, add sprinkles or sprinkle on sugar, frost them, or leave them plain. Pretty much there was an option for just about everyone. My thanks go out to Ulrike for choosing such a fun cookie to make during the holidays!

I decided to add a little bit of really good almond extract (about 1/2 tsp) to the dough and about 2 ounces of bittersweet chocolate, finely grated. I also decided to make them into slice and bake cookies so that I wouldn't have to worry about trying to figure out a good way to decorate them with icing (which I am not that great at). I rolled the dough into two cylinders, wrapped them up really well in plastic wrap, and stashed one in the freezer for a later date. When the other roll was nicely chilled (about two hours in the refrigerator, just to be sure) I unwrapped it and rolled it in some ground almonds. I sliced the cookies about 1/4-inch or so thick and sprinkled them with some raw sugar and baked them up.

I thought the recipe was nice and easy, and the cookies were extremely delicious. Mine turned out nice and buttery and soft, but I did cut them a little thicker and also only baked them for about 9 minutes so they didn't get crispy at all. I just prefer softer sugar cookies, though I think this recipe would be good no matter what. We pretty much inhaled that first roll and I'm glad I stashed the other in the freezer to keep me from baking (and eating) them all in one sitting.

Make sure to check out how all the other Dorie Bakers did this week - I'm sure there is a lot of fun and beautiful cookies running around out there today!