Edible Art easter cookies

Carrying on with our Easter Theme and the Virtual Book Club post from yesterday – we’ve also been baking some cookies. J’s friend came around and along with J and T we made and decorated some Easter Themed Shortbread cookies.

Now as this was T’s first go at anything baking related (she didn’t manage it though as fell asleep in her high chair before she got the dough) I decided it was best to use an egg free recipe for the cookies which meant when (notice I don’t even attempt to say if) she ate it I wouldn’t have a problem.

What you need to make our egg free Easter cookies

115g/4oz/half cup Butter or Soft margarine at room temperature diced
175g/6oz/1 and a half cups Plain Flour (all purpose)
50g/2oz/quarter cup Caster (superfine) sugar

for decoration

Icing sugar
Water – to make to some icing with
Food Colouring
Sprinkles
Balls
Glitter
Sugar coated candies

How you make the egg free Easter cookies

Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy. Then add the flour to make a paste – turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. Then wrap in film and chill for at least 30mins in the fridge.

J kneading the cookie dough

I had this prepared in advance and when J’s little friend A arrived we got out the dough and they started to knead it and spread it out – we went with the using the hands to press it into shape method as we only have one child-size rolling pin and at 2 and a half neither J nor A take turns very well when it’s such a fun activity.

Shortbread cookies with Easter themed cutters

We preheated the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4 and greased a baking tray whilst they made the dough as flat as possible and then using my easter themed cookie cutters they cut out eggs, bunnies, eggs with legs and lambs from the dough and we laid them on the tray to go into the oven. Once done they cleaned themselves and ran out to play whilst the cookies cooked and cooled.

A decorating her cookies

J decorating his cookies

When they had cooled we set up a decorating station – using a muffin tin we made up 4 different colours of icing and then using baby food freezer pots we put out some added decoration for them to the use and then left them to decorate the cookies themselves. A went for the minimalist look and J went for the all on look. Both had great fun making these and they are so easy to make.

J's finished cookies