Shamrock Cookies

Just in time for St Paddy's Day, here's a recipe for shamrock cookies (aka regular sugar cookies shaped & dyed like shamrocks). I'm in the US just now, so this is a short one, but basically, these cookies, though cute, are so temperamental. The dough didn't firm up enough to really slice through it cleanly, even with my sharpest knife, so the first ones I made had leaves shaped like ovals. Then I started forming the dough into balls and flattening them with the bottom of a glass, but they stuck so badly to the glass that those ones ended up ragged on top. Finally I came up with the idea of forming the dough into three small balls, placing them next to each other and baking like that, which was fine but it yielded a very cakey cookie that went from undercooked to burnt in the time it took me to put on my oven mitt so I could get the pan out of the oven. They reminded me a lot of these, actually.

The verdict:

3 spoons out of five. Adorable! But not very practical, unless you are having a St Patrick's Day party, in which case I would totally make these. I hear green beer washes them down just swell.

ONE YEAR AGO: MOCHA CAKE WITH CARAMEL FROSTING
TWO YEARS AGO: HONEY CHOCOLATE CAKE
three years ago: French Pudding

the recipe:

Shamrock Cookies

the directions:

Stir together flour, salt and baking soda, then set aside.
In another bowl, mix shortening, sugar, egg and vanilla.
Blend flour mixture into shortening mixture, adding enough food colouring to tint the dough green about halfway through.
Divide dough in half and roll each half into a log about 1-inch wide and 10-inches long.
Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and chill at least one hour or up to overnight.
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 200C/400F.
With your sharpest knife, slice 1/8-inch slices and place slices just touching on an ungreased baking sheet.
Use the remnant dough from each end to make stems for the shamrocks.
(If your knife, like mine, is not sharp enough to slice cleanly through the cookie dough, you can roll small teaspoons of dough into balls and arrange them as above. This will yield a puffier, cakier cookie).

the ingredients:

1 ½ c (180g) flour
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp baking soda
½ c (110g) Stork (shortening in the US)
½ c (100g) sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
Green food dye