Star-Spangled Sugar Cookies

Homemade Star-Spangled Sugar Cookies

Who else is excited for the holiday weekend?! I think these cookies speak for themselves in demonstrating my enthusiasm about the Fourth of July! It really is one of my favorite holidays of the year! It is always a highlight of my favorite season (summer!) and I love celebrating it with my friends and family in one of my favorite places: Cape Cod! So in honor of America's independence this year, I decided to pull out all the stops to create some very patriotic sugar cookies.

I was excited to use a sugar cookie recipe I found on allrecipes.com that was featured as a moderation to another recipe. The moderation was created to produce a softer sugar cookie (by adding less flour initially, allowing for more flour to be added during the rolling-out process). The moderation didn't turn out to completely live up to my expectations however, as the dough was much too soft to be rolled out. I ended up having to add so much flour to the dough as I kneaded it and prepared it to be cut into shapes that I think it may have just been worth it to add the extra 3/4 cup of flour in the first place. You live and learn -- such is baking! 

Nevertheless, once I added enough flour to create a dough consistency that warranted rolling out, I used a set of four different star cookie-cutters to create a variety of cookie sizes. The recipe yielded about 40 cookies so I definitely had my decorating work cut out for me! Luckily, I had some help from a good friend who assisted me by mixing up and coloring some of the frosting, and decorating some of the cookies! Baking can definitely be more fun with a friend, and we had a blast coming up with different festive ways to employ red, white and blue frosting, piping gel and edible glitter! When all was said and done, we were left with an array of classic sugar cookies with a star-spangled twist! Yum!

In addition to great family, friends, food and fireworks, I'm looking forward to sharing these celebratory desserts with everyone this weekend! What are your plans for celebrating the Fourth of July? No matter what they are, I would definitely recommend whipping up some of these cookies! They are a fun and easy way to get into the celebratory spirit!

Happy 4th and Happy Baking! :)