Easter Fun

I just love Easter time because everything is just so fresh and cheery!  Equally, I love to make and decorate cookies because.... well because it's cookies and it's decorating.  I never got a chance to decorate cookies with Luke this past Christmas because let's face it who has time for anything during the hectic-ness of the holidays?  I thought it would be a great idea to do for Easter since this time of year is a lot more calm.  Also, Easter is all about egg-shapes and if you have a child anything like mine who sadly watches countless youtube videos of "surprise eggs", than you would agree that anything in an egg-shaped form is going to be a hit!
Not only is the decorating party a fun idea to do with your child but making the cookies are also entertaining for them as well.  My Lukey loves to help roll the dough and cut out the shapes with the cookie cutters.  (He has his own roller that he takes from his little play kitchen that he always insists on using).  You can use your normal go-to sugar cookie recipe if you have one or you could even buy pre-made cookie dough if you don't have the time to make your own.  Just make sure it's the kind that you can roll out.  The recipe I use for sugar cookies is a very standard and basic dough.  I love it because I usually have everything on hand which means no running to the store for any of the ingredients.  I used mostly all organic ingredients for these cookies and I swear it make a difference in how they taste.
Here is the recipe for the sugar cookies...

Ingredients
1 1/2 sticks of room temperature butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla bean paste (or Vanilla Extract)
2 3/4 cup of flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Royal Icing
1 1/4 cup confectioners sugar
1 tbsp water
2 drops of food coloring

Directions
Beat together the butter and sugar.  Add in the eggs and vanilla bean paste.  If you don't have vanilla bean paste you can substitute with vanilla extract.  (If you can get your hands on the paste though, get the paste!  It's like the flavor of vanilla extract times ten!)  Next, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.  With your mixer on a low setting, slowly add the flour mixture into the wet ingredients.  Increase the speed of your mixer and make sure everything is mixed well.  It should at first resemble course crumbs and then form into one large ball.  When mixture is complete roll the dough out on a floured surface to about 1/8 inches thick.  Now you are ready to use your festive cookie cutters to cut out some fun shapes!  (I found the bunny and egg shaped ones at target!)  Place all the shapes on an ungreased baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about 8-10 minutes.  Once you see the edges of your cookies turning slightly brown, they are done!  Now it's time to decorate and enjoy!

You can decorate with anything that you would like.  I just raided the baking shelf in my pantry and came up with this ensemble.  If you don't have any sprinkles or anything you can totally just decorate with different colors of royal icing which I also made two tiny batches of.  Royal icing is so super easy and literally takes seconds to make!  All you do is just place all the ingredients in a bowl and mix!  I put them in the plastic squirt bottles because it makes it so much easier for a kid to use and makes for a lot less of mess than a piping bag would.  You can also adjust the flooding consistency of your icing but adding or decreasing the amount of water.

These adorable egg plates, cups, spoons and table runner are from pottery barn kids.  I bought the whole set last year and just love it so much!  I also found this adorable kids bunny apron on clearance last year at William Sonoma.  Anytime I see something adorable that is a great price I buy four, in hopes of having four kids one day.  (You don't have to tell me I'm crazy, I am already well-aware haha!)  So that's what I did with these aprons because I just could not deal with the cuteness of them.  One day I'll get around to monograming them for each kid. (yeah... one day hopefully before they leave for college).

If you get a change to make these with your kids, make them.  I guarantee they will love it and you will love watching them even more.  Have fun and Happy Easter!!