Easter Cookies.

Boy, did these turn out better than we imagined! Aren't they cute little Easter eggs?! The kids had a blast decorating them. This is my favorite recipe but we've never done them as Easter eggs. They are super easy!

(Especially after a bummer of a day. It involved green paint. Lilly decided to "decorate" the carpet in Max's room...as well as some of the furniture. It doesn't appear to be coming out. I yelled a lot.)

Here is the cookie dough recipe:
Vanilla Almond Sugar Cookies---3 c. all purpose flour
                                                  2 tsp. baking powder
                                                  1 c. sugar
                                                  2 sticks butter (cold)
                                                  1 egg
                                                  3/4 tsp. pure vanilla extract
                                                  1/2 tsp. pure almond extract
Preheat 350 degrees. Combine flour and baking powder--set aside. Cream sugar and butter. Add egg and extracts. Mix. Gradually add flour mixture. Beat til combined. The dough will be crumbly. Knead it together and roll onto floured surface. Try not to handle the dough too much or it will become tough. Cut into shapes. Place on parchment lined sheet. Put the whole sheet in the freezer for 5 min. before baking. Decorate with egg yolk glaze*. Bake 7-12 minutes, depending on the thickness of your cookies. They taste best when they show no brown on the tops of the cookies---just a little brown, barely visible on the bottom.

*Egg Yolk Glaze---1 whole egg yolk
                             1 tsp. water
                             2-3 drops of food coloring
 You'll have to use the egg yolk mixture for each color you want. Sometimes I split the yolk and water before adding the food coloring--if I don't need a lot of color. This is very runny. Also, blue doesn't work well in the yolk...it turns green. I have yet to figure out the best blue. Another tip, use drop food coloring...paste doesn't incorporate as well into the yolk.
Now paint. Use new paint brushes. Little watercolor ones work best but you can use skewers or whatever you have on hand. It's so fun to let the kids experiment. To add dimension to the decorations I piped a little icing on some of them. Just a simple powdered sugar and milk icing.