Play Dough Cookies

It is March, which means ins some parts of the world spring is on its way. Well, here in lovely Saskatoon spring will have a later appearance, we still have snow everywhere. Actually, we had a snow storm the other day but we hope warm weather is on its way. If you don’t have the colours outside you should make sure you have them inside, on your plate, or in your hand for that matter. These lovely cookies are the perfect opportunity and so much fun to look at.

The recipes comes from Amanda’s Cookin’. It seems she uses it for several occasions, like Valentine’s Day and such. It’s nice to have a basic recipe that is versatile and can be used for anything you can imagine. The best part about this is, it uses cream cheese. I had some left from this recipe and wasn’t sure what to do with it. Perfect solution!

Ingredients:

– 3/4 cup butter, softened
– 3 ounces cream cheese
– 1 cup white sugar
– 1 egg
– 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
– 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
– 1 teaspoon baking powder
– 1/4 teaspoon salt
– assorted colors of paste food coloring
– 24 lollipop sticks (if you like)

Cream the butter, cream cheese and sugar until all is nice and fluffy. After that you add the egg and vanilla and mix until it’s smooth. Then add the dry ingredients and keep mixing until it’s combined as much as possible. This is a dough that needs some kneading by hand I found. It will be a bit greasy though. Once you have a nice ball of dough you divide it into as many parts as you want to use colours. The whole thing really feels somewhat like play dough and mixing dough will food colours (I used the liquid ones) results in, well, messy hands at best.

My red and orange looked similar, next time, more red.

Tip 1: When mixing dough and colours start with the lightest colour (yellow) and work your way towards the darkest (blue/purple). It’s ok to have a tiny bit of yellow in your red dough but it won’t look so good to have blue in your yellow.

Colours everywhere, even after two days.

Use as much colour as you wish to get the shade you are looking for. I would say it also depends on your food colours. If you use the regular ones from the store you probably need a bit more than when you use Amicolour or Wilton. Make sure you knead well so that it all combines and has the same colour. Wrap up the balls of dough and place in the fridge for about 2 hours.

Tip 2: If the dough is too soft it will be difficult to work with, e.g. strands you form will break.

Twist together two colours, then add another one.

Take the dough out of the fridge and knead it a bit so that you can work with it. Roll it into long strands so you can roll it up and make it look like a lollipop. Or you can form clover leaves, heart shapes, bread it and so on. It’s really up to you. You can even twist it and then roll it up, that way your shape will have various colours.

Bake at 180°C for about 10 min or until lightly brown.

I found working with the dough a lot of fun, like play dough. It would be great for kids too, you can play, create, eat it, and it’s not messy (at please not post coloured). Oh, and of course you could just roll it out like regular cookie dough and cut out shapes, like buttons.

Making buttons is fairly simple.

How to make buttons: Cut out round shapes and take a second round cookie cutter that is not too much smaller. Lightly press into the first shape so that you have a rim. Take a lollipop stick and press four times into the cookie to create the button holes. After baking you might want to re-do the button holes.

They all look a bit different.

Happy baking!