Day 10 - Fun with Food Coloring

I had a lot of fun today!! It was a lot of work but it was well worth it!!!

I made Star Wars sugar cookies with cookie cutters from William Sonoma. They are SO cool!!! I made some a week or so ago. I liked them, but couldn't figure out how to frost them. They have the cutter, but then there is a stamp that stamps the face on it. If you frost the cookie you will cover up the stamp, unless you are professional & use tiny brushes & are extremely patient & don't have a 2 year old running around ;-)

So I decided to dye the dough & them frost the hightlights. It worked out very well. Also, there is a reason why I did this. My husband & I watch a podcast called The Totally Rad Show. I was out of town when my hubby watched the episode that featured the hosts making these cookies & it was a frosting fail because of the same issues I had originally. So, my plan is to send pictures in to the podcast & maybe they will show my picture on their show :-) We'll see.

I know that most people won't have the cookie cutters, but I thought that I would share William Sonoma's sugar cookie recipe. You can use it with any cookie cutters you wish.

Sugar Cookies from William Sonoma

1 cup sugar
12 tbsp (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
1 egg, at room temperature
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Method:

Sift together flour & salt. Set aside.
In another bowl mix together, butter, sugar, egg and vanilla.
Add flour mixture in 2 parts.
When the dough comes together, form it into a ball. Split that ball into 2. Form the balls into discs & wrap them in plastic wrap. Put them in the refrigerator for 2 hours up to 2 weeks.






When you're ready to make cookies, bring the disks out of the refrigerator & allow to rest for 5 min. Roll the dough out to 1/4" thick. Preheat oven to 350 & bake for 10 - 15 min.


Before putting the dough in the refrigerator was when I added the food coloring to make my desired colors.








So, while they were baking I made the icing:

3 egg whites, at room temperature
4 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
a pinch of salt
a few drops vanilla or lemon juice
food coloring, if desired

IN the bowl of an electric mixer with a whisk attachment, beat the egg whites, confectioners' sugar, cream of tartar & salt on medium-low speed. Add the vanilla or lemon juice and turn up the speed to medium-high for 7-8 minutes until stiff peaks form & it triples in volume.








Next, I decided to make a No-Cook PlayDough for my daughter. I thought it would be a nice thing for her to play with from time to time.

No-Cook Playdough from Cooks.com

3 cups flour
1 1/2 CUPS salt
1/4 cup oil
1 cup water
food coloring



Blend until it forms a dough ball. You can use a stand mixer or a food processor with a dough blade.
This was the point that I broke the dough into balls & dyed each one a different color.