Sprinkle Shortbread Rounds

One of my favorite things in the world is cooking for my kids. I absolutely love it! And there is one question I get repeatedly for people, “How do you have the time???” I get it, that’s a very fair question. My secret is early preparation. I’ll mention this a little more in some future blog posts, but I am well known for taking the day to cook large batches of a food item and then freezing it to cut down on my meal prep time. The other day I was finishing up school registration and started think about school lunches. I had this idea that I wanted to make miniatures of different types of cookies to keep in the freezer and pull out for packing lunches. When I mentioned my idea to my mom she said, “you know that’s what Famous Amos cookies are for, right??” (haha) I definitely know there is an easy way to pack cute little cookies, but like I said, I just truly love cooking for my kids. I find cooking and baking relaxing, so this isn’t an extra stress for me. Especially doing it now when there is no rush. The kids hang out with me in the kitchen and help out and we all have fun. Plus, when the school year does start, that’s one stress I won’t have because it’s all prepped ahead of time!

A while back I bought Betty Crocker’s 1963 Cooky Book. I was tired of making my same cookie recipes and was looking for some inspiration. In there they had a recipe for Kaleidoscope Cookies. Basically they are shortbread cookies, with a heap of food coloring, a spoonful of flavoring, and a mountain of sprinkles. Also the recipe made TEN DOZEN FULL SIZE COOKIES! and if I was doing cookies at about half size, I would probably end up with 240 cookies! Yikes. So I changed some things around and here’s the result. 100 of the cutest little quarter sized shortbread rounds with sprinkles.

Ingredients

• 2 Sticks of Room Temperature Unsalted Butter
• 1 Cup Powdered Sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 2 1/4 Cups Flour
• A Pinch of Salt
• A Small Mountain of Sprinkles (About a 1/2 Cup, I used a mix of Jimmies and Nonpareils)

Instructions

• In a mixer cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla.
• In a separate bowl mix the flour and salt.
• Add the flour mixture to the butter/sugar.
• Once all combined divide into 4, somewhat equal, balls.
• Roll into logs about an inch tall. So that they are about the size of a quarter when you slice it.
• Wrap in plastic wrap, and let it chill in the fridge for just a couple minutes. You don’t want them to be too firm because you want the sprinkles to stick, just firm enough so it’s easy to handle and not fall apart.
• Pour sprinkles onto a tray and roll each dough log in them. You might have to press the sprinkles on. Roll the logs back in the plastic wrap and place in the fridge until very firm.
• Preheat oven to 375°.
• Take the logs out and slice each round about 1/4 inch thick. Place on a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake for 7-9 minutes.

And now you can eat them by the handful! oh…I mean, save them in the freezer for school lunches…. Happy baking! I’ll be sure to post an update when I get the rest of my tiny cookies done!