Feast Day Sugar Cookies

The go-to dessert in our house for feast days when I'm either rushed for time, or just can't come up with something original, is frosted sugar cookies. Frosted in green for St. Patrick's Day, as they are pictured here, or with white frosting and blue sugar for a Marian feast day, or with a country's flag colors for any international saint, they make a fun addition to a feast day or dessert. The cookie taste and texture is a lot like cookies from Cheryl & Co., if you're familiar with them, or a standard bakery sugar cookie. They are soft, due to the short bake time and thick cut, and frosted with thick buttercream frosting. They are one of my kids' favorites and there are never cookies left for very long.



(I rolled my St. Patrick cookies a little too thinly and they browned a little too quickly, so do as I say and not as I do.) ;-)

Bakery Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter Crisco (or butter, but you'll get a crisper cookie)
1 cup sugar
2 t. baking soda
1 egg
1 t. vanilla
3 cups flour
a few tablespoons of milk as necessary

Cream together Crisco (or butter) and sugar with electric mixer.
Add egg, vanilla and baking soda.
Add flour one cup at a time.
Add milk one tablespoon at a time until dough is of rolling consistency.
Roll out and cut into shapes (roll thickly -- about 1/4 to 1/3 inch).
Bake for 6-7 minutes on ungreased cookie sheet
on top shelf of oven at 400 degrees.
(Cookies will look undone on top).
Cool and frost.

Frosting:
4 T. softened butter
2 c. powdered sugar
1/2 t. vanilla
a few T. milk to make frosting spreading consistency

Beat butter in a mixing bowl and add powdered sugar gradually.
Add vanilla and milk and beat until frosting is a good spreading consistency.

After frosting cookies, sprinkle immediately with colored sugar.
Let frosting harden slightly before stacking the cookies.

* Cookies can be frozen for a few months -- freeze before frosting.
On the day they are needed, pull the desired number out of the freezer and thaw.
Make frosting fresh and frost (and sugar) when cookies reach room temp.


A few color suggestions for sugar cookie frosting and sugar sprinkles:

Pink -- St. Valentine's Day, Laetare Sunday, Gaudete Sunday
Red -- Pentecost and any Feasts of Jesus' Passion and Precious Blood (like Corpus Christi), feasts of the Cross, feasts of apostles and martyrs
Purple -- Lent and Advent
Blue -- Marian Feast Days
White -- Angel feast days