Themed Cookies ... Happy St. Patrick's Day - Shamrock Cookies

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  One last treat made for the Boys Classmates.  This was simple just a little time consuming.  I've made a version of these cookies as Pumpkins and Hearts.  NOW to find a shamrock cookie cutter took me going to EIGHT stores, who knew they would be so hard to find.  THEN of course I couldn't find one big and one small.  So on to Amazon I went to find a set of 3 Shamrock cutters. A little spendy but I was desperate, don't tell my husband .. lol.  He thinks I over do it and shouldn't do all these things for the kids school, I tell him I only have a few more years before they won't take to baked goodies.

I started out with a Sugar cookie found on All Recipes, dubbed The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies.

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups butter, softened 2 cups white sugar 4 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS:

1.	In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
2.	Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
3.	Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

After I let the dough chill for an hour I took 1/3 and left it white.  2/3 I took Kelly Green Wilton Icing Color to color the dough the right shade of green.  I rolled out the dough and cut my large shamrock cookies.  I then took a smaller shamrock to cut out the centers, make sure you be careful to make sure the dough is on the sides of each side.  I then rolled out the 2nd color and cut out smaller shamrock shapes.  I inserted a smaller shamrock of the 2nd color into the large shamrock.  I baked them for 7 minutes and then let them cool on a rack.  See below for a step by step picture.  

I had extra green left over so I made some large green shamrocks that I baked also.

I love doing these two tone cookies, they always make me smile.  They look so special and really not too much work but I think look like a million bucks!  I mixed it up with green on the outside and then white on the outside.  

Any St. Patrick Day Plans?

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.