Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Look at the mess I woke up to this morning! Apparently Leprechauns visited us last night! My children are running around the house looking for them. My daughter is positive that if she sees one, she can keep her eyes on him until he leads her to gold. She's been practicing.


St. Patrick's day always gives me spring fever. Earlier this week, I thought it would be fun to make some spring-inspired sugar cookies and let the kids decorate them. (We colored them green for St. Patrick's day). 

And St. Paddy's day would not be St. Paddy's day without some green pancakes;

"May the Lord keep you in His hand and never close His fist too tight". Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

For the sugar cookie recipe, go here (note: I didn't want "poofy" ones this time, so no creme of tartar), and for the icing recipe, go here. 

Sugar Cookie Icing

 Ease: 5/5     Kid-friendliness: 5/5     Taste: 5/5     Time: 5/5

A cookie decorating party would not be complete without colored icing. I found this over at allrecipes.com. I altered it only slightly. It worked really well. It's quick and easy to make. I liked it because it's not overly sweet. I made it the morning of the party and covered it with press and seal, and it was still soft when it came time to decorate (please note, that it does melt in warm weather. I packed some decorated cookies up for the park the next day, and what a sticky fantastic multi-colored mess that was!).

What you'll need:

• 1 C confectioner's sugar
• 4 tsp milk
• 1 Tbsp light corn syrup
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• assorted food coloring

In a medium sized bowl, stir together the confectioner's sugar and milk until evenly mixed. 

Add the vanilla and almond extract and stir again until evenly  mixed.

Add the corn syrup and stir until evenly mixed. At this point it was a nice smooth consistency for spreading. I added a couple of drops of food coloring and mixed well. One bowl of this would have easily covered 20 cookies, but I wasn't sure so repeated the recipe 3 times with three different colors. This was way more icing than was needed! It dried to a tacky state within 20 minutes, and completely hard within an hour. I know I will be using this recipe again.