ABC Teacher Thank You Tags and Cut Out Cookies (Free Printable)

Posted in food & flavor & recipes, free worksheets & printables by Rosemary Lynn

Well, now that the school year is starting again, I am reminded that I never posted about the Teacher Thank You tags that I made for my kids’ teachers at the end of the last school year.

Better late than never, amiright?

Anyway, I printed these up so that we could make some letter-shaped sugar cookies for their teachers and put them in little baggies. This way the teachers would get a gift the girls made themselves and one that wouldn’t take up a bunch of space somewhere.

These tags obviously work best for teachers in preschool or kindergarten, but I think they would be pretty cute to give to a high school teacher too….. or is that just me??

Plus, I left a spot for your kids to sign the tags. And that photo at the top of the post? That scribble is actually how my 3yo was signing her name at the time. I just wrote out her name on the back so that the teacher could remember who it was from.

All you have to do is print out the tags, punch a hole in them, and tie them to whatever gift you’re giving.

I picked up these snack baggies at Target and the string at the dollar store.

We made A B C cookies to match the tags.

Well, actually, we made A, B, C, D, and then the first letters of both of my girls’ names.

And we used these Wilton cookie cutters.

And the recipe I used was the same one I made last year to make some autumn leaves.

I just used different cutters and icing colors this time around.

I love baking with my girls. They enjoy being in the kitchen and cooking is a great way to learn all kinds of concepts, though mostly we just enjoy eating the food we make. :)

Remember to roll out the dough extra thick so that you get nice, soft cookies.

And don’t over-bake them – they’ll appear “almost” done when they’re actually done.

Mix up the icing using some Meringue Powder to make it nice and shiny.

This stuff is great. It smells good and it lasts forever.

You can do just one color. If you do multiple colors, please remember that you don’t need a lot of food coloring in each dish. Unless you want super bold colors, like mine.

I had intended to go for a pastel look….. but I didn’t get there, obviously. Can I blame it on my kids? They WERE the ones distracting me after all…….

Anyway, the best way to ice them cookies is by just dipping them into the bowl of icing.

Make sure you stir the bowl between each cookie and let the excess drip off (or scrape it off the sides with the fork if it’s a LOT of excess).

Then just put them on the racks and let the icing harden.

See how thick they are?

*drool*

It makes plenty. So you’ll totally be able to save some for yourselves. Store the extras in a covered container.

And feel free to experiment with the icing – my 5yo did a few tie-dyed cookies.

So, first, here are is the PDF of the printable tags:

ABC Teacher Thank You Tags

And here is the cookie recipe that I used. It’s the same one I used to make some colorful autumn leaves (scroll down for printable PDF):

Soft Sugar Cookies with Icing

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla (or almond) extract
1/3 cup sour cream
3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Icing:
2 cups confectionery sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons meringue powder
1 teaspoon vanilla (or 1/2 teaspoon almond) extract
3 to 4 tablespoons water

Cream together the butter and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy. Mix in the egg, sour cream, and extract until smooth. In a small bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking powder, then slowly mix into the wet ingredients until just combined. Do not over mix. Separate the dough in half and roll each piece out between two sheets of waxed paper to a thickness of about 1/2 inch. Refrigerate dough for an hour.

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Remove dough from refrigerator and cut out desired shapes with cookie cutters. Gently gather scraps and reroll on a floured surface. Place cookies an inch apart on parchment lined cookie sheets and bake for 9 to 11 minutes. Do not over bake! Take them out when they appear just about to be done, and before they brown. Let cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

Mix all of the icing ingredients together with a fork. Start with 3 tablespoons of water and add more, about a 1/2 teaspoon at a time, until you reach a consistency where a thick line of icing slowly and smoothly drips off of the fork when lifted from the bowl. Dye it your desired color, dividing it between separate bowls first if using multiple colors.

Dip the tops of the completely cooled cookies into the icing. Gently pull out the cookie and use a fork or skewer to scrape off excess icing without touching the cookie itself. Set cookie on top of a wire rack that’s positioned over waxed paper or foil and allow to harden completely, letting the cookies sit for at least an hour. Store covered.

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And click here for the free, printable PDF:

Soft Sugar Cookies with Icing

There you go! Happy Gifting (…and eating!)

3Dec2014

Iced Turkey Cutout Sugar Cookies {Edible Thanksgiving Place Cards}

Posted in food & flavor & recipes, holidays by Rosemary Lynn

Turkey Iced Cut Out Cookies

Okay, okay: I know it’s December already….. but I hadn’t quite finished posting about Thanksgiving, yet!

Anyway, I just had to share these adorable turkey cut out cookies.

I used the Soft Sugar Cookie Recipe that I used to make the Iced Autumn Leaves, and – since I only needed 6 turkeys – I also made more leaves. The same colors of icing worked for the turkeys, too. :)

And since I was making these only the day before Thanksgiving, my hunt for a turkey-shaped cookie cutter was less than fruitful. The Thanksgiving supplies in the craft stores had already been replaced with Christmas supplies. BUT, it turned out that my aunt had a turkey cookie cutter.

The cookie cutter wasn’t deep enough for the cookie dough, but at this point I didn’t have a lot of other options. And I didn’t feel like cutting out a template or anything crazy like that. So I pressed the cookie cutter into the surface of the dough to make an outline {see the photos below}, and finished cutting out the cookies with a small paring knife.

Luckily I was only planning on making six.

The rest of the dough became leaves. Which I also decorated like I did for the Soft Sugar Cookie recipe I linked to above.

For the turkeys, after cooling the finished cookie completely, I outlined a body shape with brown icing, then filled it in, smoothing slightly with a small angled spatula. Then I outlined tail feathers in red, orange, and yellow, one color at a time, filling them in and allowing them to sit for a minute before adding the next color.

Finally, I added the names of all the kids that were going to be there on Thanksgiving with the yellow icing. And when everything was dry, I stacked the turkeys on top of the colorful leaves on the serving platter. They would be amazing as edible Thanksgiving place cards, but we were eating at my cousin’s house, so everything went on one big plate.

Turkey Iced Cut Out Cookies

If I had time to order the cookie cutter online instead of needlessly store-hopping, I probably would have gotten the R&M Gobbler Turkey Cookie Cutter:

These would have made my life a lot easier by eliminating the step where I had to cut out each cookie individually with a knife.

And the edges would have been a lot cleaner, too.

Oh, well. Next year. And – of course – they still tasted awesome. :)

Roaming Rosie Signature

29Nov2014

Soft Sugar Cookie Recipe {Iced Autumn Leaves}

Posted in food & flavor & recipes by Rosemary Lynn

Soft Iced Sugar Cutout Cookie Leaves

I am looooooving these amazing cookies!

I’ve been meaning to try a new Soft Sugar Cookie recipe for awhile and I’ve been browsing a bunch of sites and recipes, trying to get plenty of tips.

I settled on a recipe that incorporates sour cream and I rolled the dough thicker than I normally do, and cooked it a little less.

Pretty darn perfect. :)

I typed up the recipe suggesting either vanilla or almond extract. I prefer the almond, but my kids seemed to prefer the batch I made with vanilla. Both were good, though. The only thing to remember is that in the icing, you can use more vanilla than almond extract. Most people seem to prefer it when the almond isn’t overpowering.

I used my royal icing for the cookies because it dries hard and shiny – which makes them easy to stack when storing/displaying/gifting – and because it’s easy to dip them right into the icing to make the whole ordeal quicker.

Soft Iced Sugar Cutout Cookie Leaves

I liked rolling it out between the waxed paper because it was easy to transfer to the fridge on the back of a cookie sheet, and then I could just pull it out and cut out my cookies.

Soft Iced Sugar Cutout Cookie Leaves

Re-rolling the dough {and having to add the flour to re-roll it} makes the cookies slightly tougher, or less soft, but I didn’t find the difference noticeable, really.

And I’m not about to throw out excess cookie dough.

Soft Iced Sugar Cutout Cookie Leaves

Make sure they’re nice and thick and that you don’t over bake them. They should NOT be browning on the edges before you take them out – that will eliminate the softness you’re looking for. In fact, they should look slightly underdone when you take them out.

You can use just about any cookie cutter shape you like. Here are the Wilton Leaves and Acorns 9-Piece Aluminum Cookie Cutter Set that I used:

Oh, and the recipe called for parchment lined pans. I did bake the cookies on parchment paper when I used my regular pans, but what is pictured above are my aluminum Doughmakers Biscuit Sheets, which are textured and so the cookies don’t stick. If you don’t have pans like these, use the parchment paper.

Soft Iced Sugar Cutout Cookie Leaves

I made the icing while the cookie dough was in the fridge and just set it to the side until later.

For best results: cover with plastic wrap when not in use, and make sure to stir it often when dipping the cookies in it.

Soft Iced Sugar Cutout Cookie Leaves

You can see that I used plenty of gel coloring to make the icing bright and bold.

Soft Iced Sugar Cutout Cookie Leaves

You can put the icing into a plastic baggy or decorating bag and draw it onto the cookies instead {kind of like my Chocolate Almond Mummy Cookies} but I had been seeking a different method. I found a few places – and a video – where people were suggesting that you just dip the cookies into the icing.

It worked. Rather well.

I found that it worked best if you stirred the icing often, even between each dip, and if the cookies were thick enough, you didn’t even get any icing on your fingers.

If the icing was too thick, the cookie may stick a little, and you chance it breaking. If your icing feels too thick and is pulling back when you try to lift out the cookie, sprinkle in a few DROPS of water and stir to thin it just a bit. Not too much.

And I’ve tried both a skewer and a fork to scrape off the extra icing. I prefer using the fork because it’s better than the skewer at efficiently stirring the color into the icing and re-stirring it every few minutes while icing the cookies.

When you lift up the cookie and scrape off the extra icing, don’t actually touch the cookie with the fork. While still holding the cookie upside down, or tilted to the side, move the fork through any globs of icing that are above the surface of the cookie. If there’s too much icing on them, it will drip over the sides and leave little puddles around the edges.

Then just let them sit on some wire racks until the icing hardens. It will harden on the outside thinly at first, so don’t pack them away or plate them right away if you have the time to wait. Let them sit for at least an hour, but a few hours is ideal. Just in case. You don’t want crushed/smudged icing after doing all that work.

And I might say, “all that work,” but, really, it’s easy to do. It can take awhile due to all the steps, but it is SO worth it.

Because: yum!

Soft Iced Sugar Cutout Cookie Leaves

Soft Sugar Cookies with Icing

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla (or almond) extract
1/3 cup sour cream
3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Icing:
2 cups confectionery sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons meringue powder
1 teaspoon vanilla (or 1/2 teaspoon almond) extract
3 to 4 tablespoons water

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