Thursday, October 6, 2011

Fall Leaf Sugar Cookies

Fall Leaf Sugar Cookies

We are spending a lot of our days embracing the beauty of fall around here lately as we watch the leaves on the trees transition to their vibrant autumn colors and we happily jump on their crunchy counterparts that litter the lanes :) The children keep bringing in handfuls of stray leaves to that they just couldn't resist because they were 'to pretty' and I keep picking up crumbled bits off of the tile floor beneath our nature table as they fall apart from all of the handling *grin*.

So when I saw a photo of some great fall leaf cookies on the Country Living website I just had to bake some with the kids. The only problem was there was no recipe so I made a batch of my favorite sugar cookie dough that I use all the time and thought I'd share it with you to. It makes a nice sized batch of dough for tons of fun :)

Fall Leaf Cookie Dough

4 eggs
2 cup sugar
2 cup unsalted butter


Cream the butter and sugar together. Add one egg at a time and beat really well until the butter mixture is super light and fluffy.

1 tsp. baking powder
5 cups all purpose flour

Add the flour and baking powder to the butter mixture and mix just until combined. Once you've got it all combined divide your dough into four chunks. Don't worry about being completely accurate, just eyeball it up.

Fall Leaf Sugar Cookies

Now color each of your dough balls a different fall color :) I really like to use Wilton Gel colors. They create gorgeous vibrant colors and they are cleaner to work with than the old drip style liquid food coloring. You can find them at most grocery stores and walmart.

After you have finished adding your food coloring, wrap each piece in a bit of saran wrap and place in the fridge for about 20 minutes so that dough firms up and makes it easy for rolling later :) Roll out your dough on a floured counter top and bake in a pre-heated oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 - 12 minutes or until just starting to brown and firm up around the edges and the centers are slightly puffed up.

Fall Leaf Sugar Cookies

I set the kitchen up with three work stations so that each of the children had their own rolling pin, cookie cutters and assortment of colors and they had fun ripping off chunks of color and creating their own fall color palette :)

Psychedelic

It actually turned into a color blending lesson on top of the baking fun as we watched the colors meld together creating new tones of oranges and greens and the surprise arrival of brown each time we balled up our dough scraps and rolled them out again. Things got quite psychedelic LOL.

Fall Leaf Sugar Cookies

So much yummy fall fun. I can see we're going to have a lot of tea parties in the coming days *grin*.

Hugs,
Rosina

10 comments:

Amy Friend said...

Oh, this is a fantastic idea! Thank you for sharing. I am going to do this with the kids. I'm so happy you are back :) I hope you get better so you can stay back!

nunu said...

these are great! ezra would love this.. i just worry because i'll eat half the batch. i guess we could always give some away! no excuses...

Dana said...

This is a fantastic idea! The weather is too beautiful right now to be inside baking, but as soon as we get a gloomy day I am going to try this to cheer us all up!

Hopewell Creek Designs said...

These are GREAT!! I am going to share this on my blog and facebook page. We too are enjoying the beautiful trees and leaves changing.I really have to find some time to make these they look so good!!

Sandpiper said...

Those are really neat cookies!! I like using those gel colours too!

verdemama said...

So pretty. My 4 yo would love making these!

Mal said...

These are beautiful!

http://chicgeekery.blogspot.com/

Rosina {Rosy ~ Posy} said...

Thanks everyone :) I ate WAY to many of them though *grin*. You can definitely half the batch if you want to avoid to much nibbling LOL.
Rosina

house full of jays said...

These are so pretty so fall! Great idea!

Unknown said...

Yummy! What a delicious idea! We are here in BC too and I miss the fll colours from the East coast so these look like the perfect treat!