Being Green is Easy

Around Valentine's Day, I was trying to come up with a decent recipe for red velvet sugar cookies but due to a couple of *interesting* experiments, I never really came up with anything share-worthy.  I decided to try my luck just once more with green instead for St. Patrick's Day.  I was sure I had a shamrock cookie cutter but when I went to cut out the cookies, I discovered I was wrong.  So, I made a bunch of green frogs instead.  A perfect way to cater to the 4-and-under crowd.  The bonus was that I had purchased some edible sugar eyes (by Wilton) awhile ago and decided to use them.  I think these are perhaps the cutest sugar cookies I have ever made and so simple since I did not frost them.  I can't wait to try these eyes again around Halloween with bats and ghosts.  Here's the recipe (based on Mary's Sugar Cookies in the Betty Crocker Cooky Book):

Festive Frog Sugar Cookies
1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cube of butter (8 Tbls) softened
4 oz. cream cheese softened
1 Tbls cocoa powder
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp almond flavoring (or mint flavoring might be nice instead)
2-1/2 cups flour (I used bread flour for about half of it)
1 tsp soda
1 tsp cream of tartar
A liberal squirt of green gel food coloring

Cream butter, cream cheese and sugar.  Add egg, flavorings, food coloring and mix well.  In a separate bowl, mix all dry ingredients together.  Add to sugar mixture and mix until combined.  Refrigerate for at least one hour.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Roll out on a lightly floured surface to about 1/4" thick (thinner if you like crispy cookies).  Cut with cookie cutter, place about 1" apart on an ungreased baking sheet.  Sprinkle with baking sugar and bake about 6-7 minutes until set but not browned.  Right when the cookies come out of the oven, press two edible eyes firmly into cookies.  This batch made exactly 44 frogs...and my sons ate the remaining dough bits.

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!