Sugar Cookies

Ease: 4/5     Kid-friendliness: 5/5     Taste: 5/5     Time: 4/5

First, hello fellow Blog-hopp'in Friends! Thanks for stopping by...

I have been talking all week about the main event at my daughter's 3rd birthday part - cookie decorating. It worked out really well. The kid's loved it! (Warning: if you are concerned about getting your floors dirty, this idea is not for you).

I have tried a couple of different sugar cookie recipes, and they have always turned out...meh. My mother-in-law gave me this recipe years ago, and this was the first time I used it. I thought these sugar cookies turned out better than any previous ones I had made. They were fluffier (probably because of the cream of tartar!).

I was able to prepare the cookies ahead of time and I made the icing the morning of the party. Instead of goodie bags, I bought plain aprons from Michael's for the kids to take home and jazzed them up with soccer ball iron-ons for the boys (it is FIFA, after all), and cupcakes for the girls. I also had take-out boxes for the kids to take home uneaten creations. A bunch of decorating sprinkles, jube-jubes, and mini chocolates, and we were ready to go!

To help the mom's ensure our kids ran off the sugar, once the cookie decorating was complete, the kid's played outside. We had a soccer field set up, and a bubble blowing station. We were blessed with beautiful weather. All-in-all, I would absolutely do this kind of party again.

What you'll need:

• 2 eggs
• 2 C white sugar
• 1 C shortening (melted)
• 4 tsp cream of tartar
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/4 C milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 C of flour
• assorted cookie cutters

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

Mix sugar, soda, cream of tartar, salt and nutmeg with 4 1/2 C flour. Stir in shortening, milk, and milk. Mix until thick and smooth (a nice dough-like consistency - you may need a little extra flour). 

Use the other 1/2 C flour to roll out the dough. Roll out to 1/2 inch thick. Use a cookie cutter and cut cookies out to desired shape. Place on cookie sheet and bake for ~ 10-12 minutes.

Other party menu items included sandwich trays pre-ordered from Safeway, a veggie platter, pretzels and:

• mini cheesecakes
• cranberry almond punch
• icing

Happy Friday!