4th of July Cookie Craze

What does one do when on a diet?

Bake cookies of course...

Dear hubs thought I was insane yesterday ....you see the 3 big kids are off to their grandparents for the 4th...so there are no big kids to eat the cookies. Hubs and I are on the no/lo carb thing.

Hubs "what are you doing?"

(me with stand mixer out and ingredients)

Me "gonna make 4th of july cookies"

Hubs "why?"

Me "because they look cute"

Hubs "but we can't eat them...why would you do this to us?"

Me "well it's 4th of July"

Hubs "You're gonna blog about it huh?"

Me "grins"

Little did I realize how it sucks to not be able bury your head in the middle of the fresh warm baked goodness. But

(an ah ha moment happened)

We have new neighbors that moved in next door....Ding Dong ...welcome to the neighborhood..viola. Cookies as a gift.

First off...I wish I remembered who's blog I saw these cookies on. I was blog stalking and really should have read the directions. Instead I venture off and ruin 2 batches before I fixed my mistakes.

Ingredients:

your best sugar cookie recipe (see mine below)

jolly rancher candies crushed (red and blue)

star cookie cutters (2 diff sizes)

parchment paper

The star of any decorative sugar cookie is the cookie. I totally love my sugar cookie recipe...

Basic Rolled Sugar Cookies

This is my favorite all-around cookie recipe and the one I use ALL THE TIME

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup superfine sugar,
  
• ½ tsp. Salt
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• 2 tsp. Vanilla extract
• ½ tsp. Almond extract or emulsion, optional
• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour.

Cream butter, sugar and salt until light and fluffy, 3 minutes with mixer set at medium speed.
Add yolk, beat well. Add whole egg, (beat for 1 min)
Add vanilla and almond extract and beat until well-incorporated.
Add flour; beat at low speed just until flour is mixed in; do not overmix. (basically mix just until the flour is in and stop....you don't want tough cookies do you?)

Divide dough in halves or thirds and wrap in plastic wrap in disk form. Refrigerate until firm, at least one hour and up to 2 days.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Dust work surface and rolling pin with flour. Roll dough to 1/4" thick, sprinkling with additional flour as needed to prevent sticking. Cut into desired shapes and place on parchment or silicone-lined pans. Bake in preheated oven until cookies appear dry on the surface and are light golden brown on the edges, about 10 minutes Remove from cookie sheets to cooling racks and cool completely before decorating. (I find that 8 mins is best for me....always check them ...I like them before the edges get brown)

FYI...I can usually only get about a dozen 3" cookies from this recipe. I only reroll my scraps twice...sometimes only once. Makes for tough cookie. Quickly roll your scraps and put in fridge to firm up again. Also, warm dough has a tendency to run in the oven ...so pop your tray of cookies in the fridge before baking!

Sooooo off to the cookies....trial and error

I'm not sure you noticed but the Jolly Rancher people are really mean with the cherry flavor. That flavor has the least amount in their bags. Grape (my least favorite) fills the bag the most..boo

I also crushed way way too many. Hubs was rather irked that I wasted all the good flavors and had pretty much all of it left over...so start with just about 5 pieces each.

Smash those suckers until powder form. (I didn't and wished I had)

Roll out your cookies

and cut with a large star....and place on cookie sheet.

then take a smaller star and make cut out in the middle.

Fill cookie center with crushed candy.

I stupidly overfilled my cookies for the first batch....disaster

Important note:

DON'T FORGET TO LINE COOKIE SHEET WITH PARCHMENT PAPER OR YOUR COOKIES WILL LOOK LIKE THIS....(candy stuck to pan)

Finally...we have a winner....parchment paper and didn't over fill. Makes for a beauty

Hope everyone has a fun and safe 4th.

Hubs big 4-0 birthday is the day after. His favorite cakes are the ice cream cakes from Baskin Robbins. Remember the good ol days when they used to put dry ice in with the cake to keep it cold? We used to put a few chunks in a 2 liter bottle and put the cap barely on and watch it shoot off. I guess it was crazy kids like us that made them stop putting the dry ice inside the boxes. (grins)