Strictly speaking, this recipe is for the Christmas holiday, but these cookies can be made at any time of the year also. This is a great recipe to have the children try to bake!

1)Cream together 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of butter
2)Cream together 2 eggs and 1/2 Tbs. vanilla extract, then add to sugar and butter
3)Combine together: 3 cups flour, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 1/2 tsp. baking powder
4)Roll dough out on floured surface and cut into shapes
5)Cut out the middle of each cookie and put crushed hard candy (such as candy canes) into the hole
6)Bake on sheets at 375 degrees lined with tin foil.

Enjoy!

[m brown]

Thanks! looks really easy for the kids!!!

[lynne]

At the pre-school where I did cooking "session" we used jolly ranchers so kids could "flavour" their cookies as well as have a wonderful see-through ornament! I really reccomend cooking these on aluminum foil or silpat; didn't have wonderful luck with parchment (even oiled). Can be a non-Christmas project if you vary the shapes. We did oval/egg shapes with stripes of colour. Do shamrocks cut out of shamrocks and fill with green lifesavers, pumpkins with orange. I think it is the translucent affect that kids get so excited about. Warning--don't pull off pan until slightly cool and don't let the kids touch the candy part until very cool.

Another good kid recipe (even if the wrong time of year) is to make chocolate barks-- they seem to require just the right amount of time before the attention span wonders. We have done "chocolate easter eggs" in this method, using white bark or chocolate spread in an egg shape and quickly 'decorating' or eggs with broken pieces of candy cane, clear hard candies, etc.

[ March 02, 2001: Message edited by: lynne ]