Pinata Cookies – for Your Birthday Dessert Table
Do you hate cakes, yet want to make tasty birthday dessert table for your guests? It’s possible to get the fill of sweet treats without having a birthday cake. Of course, you need to add a candle, sprinkles and icing to your sweet treat to make it more “birthday appropriate”. Right now, I’ll present you a recipe for delicious and fun cake alternative: pinata cookies. Hope you’ll like them too!
Ingredients:
- sugar: 1 cup
- powdered sugar: 1 cup
- butter: 1 cup
- vegetable oil: 1 cup
- 2 eggs
- flour: 5 cups
- baking soda: 1 tsp
- cream of tartar: 1 tsp
- salt: 1 tsp
- almond extract: 1 tsp
- vanilla: 1 tbs
- food coloring: 5 colors
- Mini M&M’s
* For the frosting:
- powdered sugar: 1/2 cup
- milk: 2 tsp
Instructions:
Put the butter and the sugars in a bowl and cream them together. Beat in the eggs, than add the vegetable oil. Put all the dry ingredients in a separate dish to combine them; add them gradually to the dough mixture. After you’ve done this, mix in the almond extract and vanilla.
Split this dough into 5 even-size balls and add food coloring to each ball until you achieve the desired color. If you use gel food coloring, you’ll get more intense colors compared to the liquid food coloring.
Use a container that has the same approximate width to your cookie cutter and use plastic food wrap to line it. Split each colored ball in half and layer the dough in the container; alternate the colored dough to end up with 2 layers of each color. Cover the dough, freeze it overnight (or for at least 4 hours if you can’t wait).
Carefully remove the layered dough from the container and remove the plastic food wrap as well. Cut it into 1/4 inch wide slices. Place these slices on a baking sheet and bake for approximately 12 minutes at 350°F.
As soon as you take the cookies out of the oven, use cookie cutter to cut the cookie into desired shapes. For the middle cookies in each set of the 3 pinata cookies, cut out the center of the cookie where you’ll put M&M’s. It’s crucial to do this step as quickly as possible; the cooler the cookies are, the easier they are to break and crumble.
To assemble pinata cookies, take the first one, lay it upside down (the baked bottom should be facing up), outline the center of its body with a mixture of powdered sugar and milk (frosting glue). Put the middle pinata cookie on top of the first one, add the M&M’s to the center. Outline it with frosting glue and place the last pinata cookie on top (with its prettier side facing outward). Let your pinata cookies sit and harden for about an hour.