I started this week by doing some baking with my 4 year old son. While I tend to do most of the work, he likes controlling the speed on the cake mixer, licking the bowl and occasionally helps with adding in the ingredients. We began by making a banana cake, as I had some over-ripe bananas to use up, then I suggested we make some cookies. I was thinking we could just whip up a batch of my Grandma’s Plain Cookies, but my son had other plans. “Mummy, can we make rainbow cookies?” he asked. I quickly thought it through and replied with “We can sure try.”
Now you may be thinking, but that’s not very plain at all. Well here’s the ‘Plain’ part:
Plain Cookie Recipe
- 1 cup of White Sugar
- 200g Butter
- 1 Egg
- 2 heaped cups of White Flour
- 2 tsp. Baking Powder
- 1 tsp. Vanilla Essence
Heat the oven to 180 °C. Cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla essence – mix together briefly. Then mix in all the dry ingredients. Roll the cookie dough into teaspoon sized balls and place on a greased tray about 5cm apart. Then press each cookie dough ball with a fork, so as to flatten them a little and leave a simple pattern. Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes. Makes approximately 40 cookies.
Now here’s the ‘Best’ part – you can easily adapted this recipe to become whatever cookies you like. Here’s a few suggestions:
- Chocolate Cookies – add 1-2 tablespoons of cocoa powder with the dry ingredients.
- Chocolate Chip Cookies – add 1/2 – 1 cup of chocolate chips with the dry ingredients.
- Rainbow Cookies – divide the finished dough into 4 equal parts. Dealing with one piece at a time, return it to the cake mixer adding the food colouring of your choice. Add a few drops at a time until you get your desired strength of colour. Roll each piece into a long ‘sausage like’ shape then push two of the colours together side by side and then lay the other two side by side but on top of the first two. You want to encourage them to stick together. Roll them up in baking paper and place in the freezer for 20-30 minutes. Once the roll of cookie dough is firm slice it into pieces that are about 1cm thick. Then place on a greased tray 5cm apart and bake as above.
Turns out we have had a lot of visitors this week, so our baking has come in handy. We do hope you have a go at making some of these yourself – tell us how you got on in the comments below. Can you come up with a new flavour?
© 2016 As You Wish Events Ltd. Want to use this article in your E-newsletter, blog, or website? You can as long as you include this complete statement: Auckland, New Zealand – Event Planner & Designer Nadine Crozier publishes the ‘As You Wish Events’ blog filled with secrets, tips and how-tos for planning your fabulous event. Get your exclusive inspiration, tips and tricks at http://www.asyouwish.co.nz. As You Wish Events is an event planning and design company based in Auckland, serving the Auckland region and certain areas of Northland.