Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Art Party



Art Club has ended for the year at all three of my schools. So it was time to PARTY!
That means cookie decorating (one cookie per artist) , art games, foil sculptures, and finishing up odds and ends. This year it meant oil pastels,  phrase illustrations, and for a few, painting details on their paper mache pieces.



I always bring a ton of stuff- all the cookie fixings, along with fruit, carrots, chips and salsa, etc. The set up includes a colorful thrifted table cloth.

Games include geometric shapes to arrange in pictures, visual thinking puzzles, and close-up photo identification cards. The kids have fun with those- they can play as teams trying to guess what each photo close up is. The name is on each card as a word scrambled clue. 
And we had rolls of foil for sculpting.

I make all the cookies and the frosting. Why? Because I'm nutty. And I love an excuse to bake.
These are the BEST Sugar Cookies.
And the BEST Buttercream Frosting. 
YUM.

Char's Sugar Cookies 

COMBINE in a bowl:
                    5 Cups Flour
                   1/2 tsp. Baking Powder
                   1 tsp. Baking Soda
                   1 tsp. Salt
CREAM with electric mixer: 
                   1 Pound Salted Butter
                   1 Cup Sugar
                   1 Cup Powdered Sugar
ADD to creamed mixture:
                   2 Eggs
                   1 Tablespoon Vanilla
NOW slowly add dry ingredients.
ROLL to 1/4 inch thickness on floured surface, and cut out.
 (If dough is sticky, refrigerate to firm, then reroll and cut.
BAKE cookies at 375 degrees for 7-9 minutes.

Number of cookies will depend on size.. And how much of the dough you eat. (Not that I ever do that....) Can be made ahead and frozen. I think I got about 60 (3- inch ) cookies from each batch...Note to self: 3 batches is more than enough for 8 classes..

My Best Buttercream
(adapted from Billy's Bakery Vanilla Buttercream)

1 Cup salted Butter
6-8 Cups Powdered Sugar
1/2 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream
2 tsp. Vanilla

In electric mixer, cream  room temperature butter until smooth, about 3 minutes. With mixer on low speed, add 6 Cups of the sugar, alternating with whipping cream and vanilla. Gradually add more powdered sugar to desired consistency.

Make it a Wonderful Day!

2 comments:

  1. I have yet to find that perfect sugar cookie recipe- I will try these (no that we NEED them!)

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  2. Yum! I was thinking about making fruit pizza for July 4th to take to my son's house. It is made on a pizza sized sugar cookie. Thanks for posting the recipe. I lost mine years ago in the move to Washington State. Funny I was thinking about this today and then you posted this! LOL

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