Cookies for Little Ones

My friend Katie is an elementary school teacher down in FL.  Katie and I go way back to my junior year of college when she (along with the guy who eventually became my fiance) got into the a cappella group I was in.  Anyways, we became fast friends, and, though she's over a thousand miles away, I think of her lots :)

I made these cookies for her 3rd grade (is that right?) class.  She has 18 girls in her class (no boys!) and so I was free to make these as girlie as i wanted.  Yippie!

The recipe that i used was my standard Sugar Cookie Recipe that I will use till the day I croak.  I love it, it's just one of those things that you can always count on.

Okay, and here are the lovely little cookie cutters I chose from my growing collection.

So here they are after baking.

Frosting time!  A note about frosting: for cookies, I tend to just get the store-bought kind.  But even at the store, there are a million different types.  The kind you wanna get is the regular kind.  The whipped kind is not ideal for cookies and adding food coloring.  And the reduced fat kind ends up being very glue-like, and are a complete mess.  Remind me to show you pictures of our Christmas cookies from a few years ago.  Yeah.  We won't be using reduced fat frosting for cookies.  Just put less frosting on it if you're concerned about calories.  Right.

Here are the colors I decided to work with.  Yellow of course :)  What kind of Sunny wouldn't use yellow frosting?

Pink.  Clearly.

Blue, because it's beautiful.  I added a touch of green to it to make it a little more oceany.

And purple, which is always tricky to get.

The best way to decorate shaped cookies is to put a glob of frosting in the middle, and work it out toward the edges with the flat part of your knife.  I use plastic knives so I can toss them if i really don't feel like washing them afterwards.

Okay, wanna see the lovelies?  Here are the Reach for the Stars cookies!

Hehe, aren't they fun?

I love how sprinkles just add so much, even if it's like a little dash of them.

And now, the Let Your Knowledge Blossom cookies!

Oh the nerdiness of it all.

This shape is particularly tough to decorate.  You have to kind nudge the frosting into every petal.  But I hate when the frosting goes all the way to the end.  So it's this constant tension between 1) my obsessive-compulsiveness and 2) frosting physics.  Ah well.  They look okay enough.

And I wrote a little note for the class.  My friend's last name was erased for confidentiality's sake.  Sorry, that's how you get if you work in Human Subject Research, alright?  But yes, here's the note.

I chortled in my joy as i thought up the names for the cookies. 

I love when kids call me Miss Sunny.  Over the summer when I did research in HK, and I'd go into the kindergarten classrooms, the kids would shout "Miss Sunnnnnny!!!" and it made me so warm and happy inside.

Anyways, cookies.  Yes, cookies.

After making these, I sent them along by putting them in a ziplock bag...

And then wrapping them in bubble wrap and putting them in a box.  I think they made it there okay.  I hope.

Make this your weekend project!  Think of a person or persons who might need a little special treat or need a little extra love.  These cookies have a great shelf life, and they taste really great cold, or dunked in coffee in the morning, or with a frosty glass of milk. 

Have a great weekend!