Toddler Wonderland Tutorial ~ Christmas Checkerboard Cookies

I am a huge fan of Trisha's Blog 3 Under 4 and her etsy shop!


Lucky for you, she is back with another fantastic tutorial, and the best part about this tutorial is not only does it look good, but it tastes great too!

Don't forget to leave some comment love on 3 Under 4 after reading this tutorial. If you do, you can have 4 extra entries into the giveaway of your choice.

I have seen Checkerboard Cookies before, but I wanted to change them up a little bit.

I wanted to try three colors and a different pattern

Vanilla Shortbread

1 1/2 sticks of butter softened

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1 large egg yolk

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

Directions:

Cream the butter and sugar. Next add the vanilla extract and egg yolk until combined. Add flour a little at a time until all combined. Shape into a disk/ball shape and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. After chilled removed from the refrigerator

Next, use food coloring to dye the dough. I use Wilton gel food coloring
I wrapped my three different colors of dough back in the plastic wrap and chilled them in the refrigerator again for about 1 hour. Next, roll out the dough using a rolling pin into a rectangle shape. I like to put the dough in between two pieces of plastic wrap to roll out dough. That way you don't need any flour all over your counter. I like less clean up at the end!

They will all look somewhat like this
Next, you are going to be layering the three colors on top of each other. Brush the first piece of dough (red) with a little bit of egg whites. We use egg whites as glue to keep the three layers together. (I do not have a brush, so you will notice in the picture that I am using the back of a spoon to put the egg whites on the dough)

Then, place the second color (white) on top of the first
Brush the white dough with the egg whites and place the third color (green in this case) on top

Take a sharp knife and cut the dough into 1/4 inch thick strips. You may want to use a ruler at this point, so that each slice is exactly the same.
Alternate the strips in the design that you want. I alternated red/green on the top. Mine looks like this

Wrap back up with the plastic wrap and chill for another hour. Take the dough out of the refrigerator and trim the edges so that you have a rectangle

Wrap it up in the plastic wrap again and chill for another hour. Remove from the refrigerator and slice into cookies.
.
Place on a cookie sheet and place into a preheated 350 degree oven for approximately 10 minutes.

Take the cookies out of the oven before they have browned. The should not have any brown on them. Cooking time may vary depending on your oven. Please watch the cookies.

And they will look something like this! Very festive and colorful! You can use any colors you want for any holiday, school colors or team colors!
And as you can see....I had a little one that thought they looked yummy!

I hope you enjoy this recipe, they take a few hours of time, but they are impressive and everyone loves them!

Thanks Trisha!