Easter Egg Popsicle Cookies

www.freefoto.com

Easter baking is a treat for kids. With the pastel colors and springtime themes, children all over the world look forward to this time of the year. So pick a day with April showers, I am on the coast so there are plenty of those and start baking Easter treats with your kids.

Easter Egg Popsicle Cookies

First you have to make the sugar cookie dough.  You can make this the day before and chill it overnight.You will need:

1 1/2 cups of soft margarine
4 room temperature eggs
2 cups of white sugar
5 cups of flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder

Cream together the butter and sugar in a large bowl than add the eggs and vanilla. Mix all the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, mixing it in a bit at a time.
Cover and chill dough overnight or if you are pressed for time for at least one hour.

Roll out the dough until it is 1/4 inch thick. If you have a egg shaped or oval cookie dough cutter, use that to cut out the shapes from the dough. You can also cut a piece of cardboard like poster board or an empty cereal box into the shape of an egg. Press that onto the cookie dough and cut around the shape with a knife.

Pat the edges of each of the egg cookies so they are smooth. Place a piece of parchment paper on your cookie sheet. I love parchment paper because it makes life a little easier but if you don't have any simply butter the sheet lightly with margarine.

Insert a Popsicle stick inside the bottom of each oval cookie ever so gently so that it is halfway up into each one. Place in preheated oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for six to eight minutes. Let cool completely.

For the icing I mix icing sugar and milk till it is the consistency I want. I divide up the icing then add gel pastel food coloring to each one.  You can use food coloring and just user a smaller amount so that the color is diluted with the icing and is more pastel in color. I place each different color in a sandwich bag, twist the end so it does not come out the top and cut a tiny hole in the corner for the icing to come out. Then I ice around the perimeter of the cookie and then fill in the middle. I use one of those spreading knives to even it all out.

I love using that superfine colored sugar to sprinkle over the icing. They will look elegant but taste divine and the children will think they are almost as magical as the Easter Bunny.