Happy St. Patrick's Day, friends! This weekend, my husband and I celebrated the holiday by eating plenty of corned beef, boiled potatoes, cabbage, and Irish soda bread with his family. I had visions of making some beautiful St. Patrick's Day sugar cookies, like these lovely ones from Sweetopia. I even made a special trip to my local baking supply store to pick up shamrock cookie cutters, green sanding sugar, and gold sprinkles.
But once the weekend rolled around, I only had a few hours to make the cookies. If you've ever baked/decorated sugar cookies, you know that it can be a time-consuming process. The dough has to be chilled for at least two hours before the cookies can be rolled and baked. Once the cookies are baked, you have to mix and dye the royal icing. Even on my best days, it takes me at least 30-45 minutes to get the icing consistency and color just right. Then, the cookies are outlined with piping icing, filled with flood icing, and left to dry overnight. From start to finish, it can be 10-12 hours for just a small batch of cookies.
In other words, sugar cookies are not a last-minute dessert. I needed a last-minute dessert. What's a gal to do?
I still made sugar cookies (this is my favorite recipe), but I left off the royal icing. Instead, I added the sprinkles to the raw dough just before baking. I was worried that some of the sprinkles -- especially those larger shamrock-shaped ones -- wouldn't stick to the dough after the cookies were baked. But it worked just fine. I also decreased the dough chilling time by putting the dough in the freezer for 30-40 minutes, rather than the regular two hours in the fridge. From start to finish, these cookies took just over two hours to mix, bake, and decorate. Problem solved!
And what goes perfectly with shamrock sugar cookies? How about some extra chewy chocolate chip cookies? I used Sally's delicious recipe for Chewy Chocolate Chunk Cookies, but substituted a variety of Irish-colored M&Ms and Peanut Butter M&Ms. Yum!
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