Jessica's 1st Birthday Cookies!

Today's Jessica's first birthday! Jessica is my cousin Patty's daughter. Since my mom knows best about the proper gifts for someone reaching this milestone and b/c I'm broke, lemon-rind and I used our baking skills to provide gifts for the party itself. We made sugar cookies! I baked them and cut out the circle shapes, and lemon-zest took to frosting. She wrote "j" on them and don't they look so pretty?! I got a little too excited about putting them into the box so I didn't let them set properly...and when they got into the box, some of the frosting got mushed. =(

I'm still out on the quest for the perfect sugar cookie and frosting. There was one recipe I used a while ago with cream cheese that I really liked, but I didn't have cream cheese on hand so I turned to allrecipes.com to find a good alternative.



Rolled Sugar Cookies
1 1/2 c softened butter
2 1/2 c white sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
5 c ap flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

1) Cream together butter and sugar until smooth.
2) Beat in eggs and vanilla. Add flour, baking powder and salt.
3) Cover and chill for at least 1 hour.
4) Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut shapes with cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
5) Bake 6-8 minutes. Cool completely.

These cookies are a dream to work with. They roll well, they bake well, and after baking, they literally just slid off the sheet.




I tried two different frostings. This one is the glossy pink one above. It's very pretty, but I wasn't a huge fan of the flavor. The cookies weren't very sweet, and I can taste the corn syrup on the icing, so the overall flavor seemed to be the corn syrup!

Glaze Icing
1 c confectioners' sugar
2 tsp milk
2 tsp light corn syrup
1/4 tsp vanlla extract
Food coloring

1) In a small bowl, mix sugar and milk until smooth. Beat in corn syrup and vanilla until icing is smooth and glossy. If too thick, add more corn syrup. Add food coloring.

This one tastes better, but just isn't as pretty. =(

Frosting
4 c confectioners' sugar
1/2 c shortening
5 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
Food coloring

1) Cream together sugar and shortening until smooth. Gradually blend in milk and vanilla with electric mixer until stiff. Color.

I hope the cookies are well received! Next time I make cookies, I'll probably go back to my trusty cream cheese recipe...it's sweet and soft...so it can handle the pretty glaze much better b/c the corn syrup taste isn't as overpowering.