St. Patrick's Day Treats for the Kids

 

 
I loved these cookies while growing up. In hindsight, they aren't anything special when it comes to taste...but they always bring back good memories and kids love them.

These cookies are much easier than the length of my instructions would lead you to think. There are just a lot of steps that get repeated. Just read through the instructions and give it a go!

Rainbow Cookies

Ingredients:

1 roll refrigerated sugar cookie dough
Red, yellow, green, and blue food dye (you can use additional colors, if you like)

Directions:

Divide the dough into four portions, ranging in size from small to large.

Above: You can do more colors than just red, yellow, green, and blue. If you do, divide them up better than I did! Red should be the biggest, and each ball of cookie dough should get smaller in size as you go. I didn't do such a great job of that here...oh well, practice makes perfect. Next time, I will get it right!

Knead blue food dye into the smallest portion of cookie dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Knead green food dye into the second smallest portion of cookie dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Knead yellow food dye into the second largest portion of cookie dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Knead red food dye into the largest portion of cookie dough. Wrap in plastic wrap until ready to use.

Rainbow Cookie Option 1:

Pull blue cookie dough out of the refrigerator and shape into a snake-like shape on a piece of waxed paper.

Pull green cookie dough out of the refrigerator. Roll out and then place the blue cookie dough on top of the green cookie dough and roll the green cookie dough over the blue to cover the blue completely.

Pull the yellow cookie dough out of the refrigerator. Roll out and then place the green log of cookie dough on top of the yellow cookie dough and roll the yellow cookie dough over the green to cover the green completely.

Pull the red cookie dough out of the refrigerator. Roll out and then place the yellow log of cookie dough on top of the red cookie dough and roll the red cookie dough over the yellow to cover the yellow completely.

Wrap log of cookie dough in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for 30-60 minutes, or until cold and firm.

Remove log of cookie dough out of refrigerator. Unwrap and slice into 1/4 inch rounds. Place sugar cookie circles on cookie sheet and bake according to sugar cookie package directions.

Rainbow Cookie Option 2:

Pull blue cookie dough out of the refrigerator and shape into a snake-like shape on a piece of waxed paper.

Pull green cookie dough out of the refrigerator. Roll out and then place it over the blue cookie dough (not enclosing the blue completely--so that it is like a cylinder cut in half).

Pull the yellow cookie dough out of the refrigerator. Roll out and then place over the green cookie dough (again, not enclosing completely).

Pull the red cookie dough out of the refrigerator. Roll out and then place over the yellow cookie dough (again, not enclosing completely).

Wrap log of cookie dough in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for 30-60 minutes, or until cold and firm.

Remove log of cookie dough out of refrigerator. Unwrap and slice into 1/4 inch slices. Place sugar cookie half-circle slices on cookie sheet and bake according to sugar cookie package directions.

Source: I believe my mom found this in a little Pillsbury cookbook years ago.

Notes: I suggest cooking these for less time in order to keep the sugar cookies soft. If the package calls for 8-10 minutes of bake time, bake them for 7 or 8 minutes. They might seem underdone when you pull them out of the oven, but after they cool, they will be nice and soft. If you cook them for 10 minutes, they will be crunchy, crispy cookies after they cool.

If you end up with crunchy cookies, you can always put a little softened vanilla ice cream on the cookie, top it with another cookie, wrap it up and freeze it and then serve it as an ice cream sandwich instead. The ice cream will soften the cookie and make it chewy and it makes for some really tasty ice cream sandwiches. See here.

Another preparation option is that you can do cookie option #1 and slice the whole log in half lengthwise and then slice both halves into 1/4 inch cookie slices. It's up to you.

You can do more colors (and add orange and purple layers, for instance, for a complete ROYGBIV rainbow). However, if you opt to use more colors, I would suggest using two rolls of refrigerated sugar cookie dough instead of just one roll. It will be easier to divide the dough into all the colors that way. Yes, you will end up with more cookies (and a longer log of cookie dough to deal with), but if your kids can't eat them, they freeze well, and you can have them another time.

These cookies aren't really an exact science and it is hard to get them to turn out perfectly, but honestly, the kids won't care. They will think they are fun and tasty even if they look a little crazy (as mine do!).