When my children were babies, I didn’t buy treats from the grocery store. I made my own simple cookies. I made plates and plates of roll out Sugar Cookies. Usually, I made them round, as I would use the end of a vegetable can to cut the cookies out. The rim is sharp and makes a nice clean cut. On Easter, I would squeeze the can together slightly to make it egg shaped for Easter Cookies. During the Christmas holidays, I got out my old-fashioned tin cutters in the shapes of bells and stars and Christmas Trees. Baby would delight to see the different shapes of cookies. I also made my own colored sugar.

Here is the recipe for Babies Sugar Cookies:

1 cup of butter
1 and a half cups of sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1/4 cup milk
3 cups of flour

Get out your mixer, and beat the butter and sugar together. Add the eggs, vanilla, salt, baking powder and milk. Now gradually add the flour. I always mixed the flour with my hands, once it got thick. You will want a nice dough that you can work easily with.

Now take your dough, after it is done and put this in the refrigerator until it is good and cold and easy to roll out. Just wrap the dough in a white dish towel or in a covered bowl. When dough is ready, just flour your table and roll out your dough to about a fourth inch thick and begin cutting out your cookies. (Don’t forget to make a mess and get flour on the floor, in your hair, and on your long calico apron.) Then sprinkle cookies with colored sugar. Put the cookies on a greased cookie sheet and bake them until they are golden brown. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes.

Now here is how I make my own colored sugar for Babies Sugar Cookies. I would take 3 little crock bowls and put in about a half cup regular white table sugar. Then to each bowl, squirt in some liquid food coloring. You can get food coloring at the store where the spices are. Just ask the grocery boy where it is. So in one bowl, squirt in red; in the next bowl, green; in one bowl, yellow for the Christmas stars. Just squirt this coloring in and stir it with a spoon and let it dry … it will dry quickly in about 10 minutes. Just stir it up good. Then I stored my sugar in little jars and used it until I ran out — then I made some more. It gets chunky in the jars, but just shake it up.

I love the light grains of the homemade colored sugar … it looks more old fashioned. When I have run out of food coloring, I have made my own colored sugar, using beet juice from a can of beets, just a few drops of it. This makes a lovely purple color. I have some cookie cutters that are of an old-fashioned Amish Mother with a long dress, and I make her dress with the purple sugar. You can just rub this sugar on with your finger to where ya want it, unlike the store bought sugar that bounces all over and never stays where ya want it.

This is a small recipe for Babies Sugar Cookies, but I would double and triple this recipe and keep it in the refrigerator, and make more cookies for when Babies Cookie Jar began to cry.