Holiday Baking with Kids Part 1

Today Riley and I did some baking. Since she was with me when I bought all the special cookie ingredients,  she was anxious to get started. We made Red-Nosed Reindeer cookies that I had pulled out of the December issue of Parents magazine several years ago.  I have several cookie exchanges to go to this month and I thought they would be really cute to take and as a bonus they would be really easy to make. I planned to make them last year but when I couldn't find the mini chocolate covered pretzels for the antlers, I gave up and made something else instead. I was so happy this year to easily find all the ingredients.

Initially, I wanted our cookies to come out looking just like the picture in the magazine. I was bummed to realize that the mini M&M's that I bought only had red and green when we needed brown for the eyes. The white icing that I got didn't create a small enough dollup of frosting, so I had to pull out my Wilton Dessert Decorator to create a smaller amount of frosting to place the candies on.

As we continued to work though I realized that we could make a small amount of cookies and use them as our practice ones so really what did it matter except making time for my daughter and having fun. Who cares if ours don't look like the picture? They are still cute and better yet they tasted great!

I included the recipe below for you to try with your little bakers! Have fun!

Theirs

 

Ours

 

Red-Nosed Reindeer Cookies:

1.      Slice pieces from peanut butter cookie dough in half (we used Pillsbury's and you could use the sugar cookie kind as well.)

2.      Shape into 1 1/2" triangles and place 3" apart on cookie sheet.

3.      Bake 8-10 minutes.

4.      While cookies are still warm, push a mini chocolate pretzel (Flipz- found them in the candy aisle) on each side to resemble antlers.

5.      Let cool completely.

6.      Have kids decorate the face: attach brown M&M Minis for eyes and a red regular sized M&M nose with frosting. (Make sure you get the bag that has more than just holiday colors!) Makes 24 but the great thing with this recipe is you can make some and put the rest of the dough in the frig until later. Enjoy!