Sugar Cookie Bars

Big news, the girls track team won conference championships yesterday! It was extremely rainy and gross out yesterday, but they ran/jumped/threw through it and came out with a victory. Standing to wait for the places to be called, our team thought we had come in second until another team was called for second place, and we finally figured out we had come in first. Though, because of my injury, I haven't been able to run this season, I still love coming to the meets to cheer all my teammates on and I was so proud of how they all preformed yesterday that I knew I needed to make them something to munch on while we celebrated the win at practice the next day.

I wanted to make something easy to serve and transport (as I knew we would be eating it out on the track) so I decided to turn the popular sugar cookie into a bar form, and decorate them using our team colors of blue and gold!

Recipe:

Ingredients:

Bars-

1/2 cup softened butter

1 cups sugar


2 eggs


1 teaspoons vanilla extract


2 1/2 cups flour


1/2 teaspoon salt


1/4 teaspoons baking soda

 

Icing-


1/2 cup softened butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract


Dash of salt

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

3 tablespoons milk

Food coloring

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 F and grease a 13 x 9 inch pan.

To make the bars, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy and then add in the eggs one at a time. Mix in the vanilla and in a separate bowl sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Slowly add this dry mixture into the butter and sugar mixture. Spread the dough evenly into your prepared baking pan(s). You may want to use your hands to pat it down more easily.

Place the bars in the oven for 12-15 minutes until lightly golden on the edges.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, beat together the butter, vanilla, and salt to create the frosting. Slowly add in the powdered sugar, and then add in drops of food coloring until the desired color is acquired.

Remove from the bars from the oven and let cool before icing.

After icing, you may decorate with sprinkles or other toppers.

Refrigerate the bars before cutting to make for easier slicing.

These bars would be great to make and have people decorate. You could either ice them before and buy a variety of candies and sprinkles for people to create their own little treats, or you could even divide the icing into several parts, coloring each differently so people may also ice their own bars as well (though the icing will not be cooled and hardened as well, it will still taste yummy!)

Walnut Pie Bars

Crisis, alert! No flour left in the house! I was so ready to bake (not only because I wanted to, but I needed baked goods to bring into school) and I opened the flour jar and nothing! I looked in the cabinet, rummaged through the shelves, and still nothing. On top of it, we are out of sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips, cocoa powder, and other ingredients for no bake treats so I was in a serious dilemma until I discovered a package of Betty Crocker cookie mix in the bak of my kitchen cabinet.

I usually never use store-bought mixes. But in times like these, I was desperate. Of course I couldn't just make the sugar cookies as directed, and instead made up my own recipe to take a plain mix and make it look homemade- I guess you can call it semi-homemade baking.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

Crust-

1 pouch Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix

½ cup butter

1 egg

Filling-

¾ cup brown sugar

¼ cup corn syrup

2 tablespoons flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

2 cups chopped walnuts

Directions:

Heat oven to 350°F. Spray bottom of 13x9-inch pan with cooking spray.

In large bowl, stir all Crust ingredients until dough forms. Press dough in bottom of pan using floured fingers. Bake 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, in medium bowl, stir all Pecan Filling ingredients until well blended. Pour over hot crust.

Bake 15 minutes or until center is set. Cool completely, and then cut into bars.

Sugar Cookie Donuts

Tomorrow is our conference championship for indoor track and I knew the runners would want to have some cookies after our races in order to hopefully celebrate another year of coming in first place!

Since everyone loves soft sugar cookies I thought I would try to make this classic a little more fun by making them into doughnut shapes complete with pink icing (I’m not planning on giving these ones to the boys team) and rainbow sprinkles.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

Cookies-

2/3 cup butter

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

¾ teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 ¼ teaspoons cream of tartar

¾ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

Icing-

2 cups confectioners' sugar

¼ cup butter

2 tablespoons & 1-1/2 teaspoons milk

½ teaspoon vanilla

Food coloring (your choice)

Sprinkles

Directions:

Cream the butter and slowly add the sugar and beat until fluffy. Add the eggs, mixing well after each addition.

Stir in the vanilla and then add the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt into the creamed mixture.

Cover and chill dough overnight in the refrigerator.

Dough before it was chilled.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line baking sheets with parchment paper. (*I find its easier if you spray your pan with pam and then place the parchment paper on top so it sticks better*).

Scoop the dough into small balls and roll the balls into ropes about 4 inches long and about 1/2 in diameter. Coil the ropes into round doughnut shapes, leaving a small hole in the middle.

Make sure to leave space between the cookies.

Place the cookies in the over for 7-9 minutes.

I used only 2 drops of coloring.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, cream together the confectioners' sugar and butter until smooth. Gradually mix in the milk and vanilla with an electric mixer until smooth and stiff, around 5 minutes. Color with food coloring if you want. You can even separate the icing and color the icings different colors to make an array of different colored donuts.

 

Using a knife spread the icing onto the cooled cookies. Afterwards, lightly sprinkle the cookies with sprinkles.

This recipe makes 2 dozen, just like 2 boxes of donuts.