St. Patrick's Day Treats

Top of the mornin' to ya!  Happy St. Patrick's Day.

We were invited to our neighbor's house for an annual St. Patrick's Day dinner.  We asked what to bring and she suggested dessert.  Someone was already bringing a pistachio cake.  So having cake would be repetitious, so I opted to go another way.  Couldn't do cupcakes or cake balls.  Same concept as cake.  What other dessert can I do that I can tint green????? Why how about iced cookies?? Shamrock shaped cookies with green icing. Who can say no to a melt in your mouth shortbread cookies with frosting? I know I can't. So let me show you how my process went.

 This is the dough I used.  It's your basic shortbread cookies recipe.  I have heard they are softer and tend to break easier, but it's a great melt in your mouth recipe. It was a very, very easy mix to do.  The problem came when you rolled it out.  You had to roll it between sheets of parchment paper and then put in the fridge for one hour to harden up. Then you rerolled, cut your cookies & put those back in the fridge to harden before baking. By putting them back in the fridge for one hour before baking, it helped so they don't spread to much.

I did roll them to thick, basically 3/4 cm. This way they were a bit thicker & easier to handle.  Not as fragile.

I baked the cookies for 14 minutes at 350 degrees.  I let them cool for a minute then transferred to wire rack so they could cool completely.  Once cooled I then stored them in an air tight container until my icing was ready.  I created a typical royal icing and tinted it green.

With the royal icing I outlined & flooded the cookie with the royal icing. I then let them dry for 24r hours.  Royal icing dries to a nice hard consistency.  It helps keep them fresh. 

Here is the finished product.  They were a hit at the party. Everyone loved them. They said they were cute & the best part, they said they were delicious!