With my cookie dough in one hand and a diet coke in the other I set off to try my hand at sugar cookie bars.
Cookie Ingredients:
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/3 cups sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla
3 teaspoons almond
2 eggs
3 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons milk
Cream shortening, butter, sugar, almond, and vanilla. Add eggs, beat well. Sift flour, salt, and baking powder. Stir into creamed mixture along with milk. Chill overnight. Grease 2 13x9 casserole dishes and evenly spread dough out. Bake on 375 degrees for 10 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack and cut into desired shapes (I chose triangles).
Buttercream Icing Ingredients:
1 lbs powdered sugar (10x sifted)
1 tablespoon Wilton Meringue Powder
1 dash salt
1 cup white crisco
1 teaspoon Wilton no-color butter flavor
1 teaspoon clear vanilla extract
3-4 tablespoons water
Cream shortening, add butter flavor and vanilla and mix well. Add Meringue powder, sugar, and salt and gradually add water.
I transferred the icing to a bag and used a Wilton #12 tip to make the icing design. Even though Valentine's Day (and Ben's birthday!) is over two weeks away, I still went with a Valentine's color scheme!
I'm thinking about bringing that snow back to my blog, since it's coming down pretty hard here!