Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Chocolate Cut Out Cookies

My son had his first "friend birthday party" this past Saturday-- he turned 5 and wanted a "football party". No problem! This is the perfect time of year to find football themed things. I baked up this cake...




...and put together 8 treat bags with little football doo-dads in them. I wanted to buy and add some of these...




...to fill up the bags. When an unexpected snow squall left our driveway/road a mess and kept my kids home from school, my errand running plans were shot. What to do?

I mixed up these cookies:


Ingredients

* 1 cup butter
* 2 cups white sugar
* 2 eggs
* 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
* 3 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* heaping 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Directions
  1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy; add eggs, one at a time, beating well. Mix in the vanilla. Combine flour, cocoa powder and baking powder; add and mix well. Wrap dough in waxed paper and chill for 2 hours.
  2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
  3. Divide dough in half. Roll out each half to 1/4 inch thick. (I recommend rolling your dough between layers of waxed paper to avoid having to use flour which can leave your cookies with a "dusty" look.) Cut with desired shaped cookie cutters. Place on lightly greased cookie sheets and bake for 8-12 minutes, depending on cookie size.
I don't own a football-shaped cookie cutter so I used a small glass bowl and overlapped my circles to form the outline of a football. I piped simple white icing laces and, voila!



Wrapped in saran wrap and tucked in the bags, they were perfect.

It's always a good thing when you can improvise with what's on hand! The party? It went off without a hitch. The cookies? They were a hit. My pocketbook? Untouched, since I used all ingredients from my pantry. Most importantly...

The birthday boy?

I think he was pretty excited about the whole affair.

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