Shamrock Cookies
by LeAnn Ralph

Use your heart-shaped cookie cutter to make Shamrock Cookies for St. Patrick's Day.

Here's how:

Time needed from start to finish, including time to put icing on the cookies, 2 to 2.5 hours. Yield: 2 dozen large shamrock cookies

Shamrock Cookie Recipe

1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter or margarine
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 cups flour

Cream shortening and sugar together. Beat in eggs. Stir in milk, vanilla and salt. Mix in flour. Work the dough with your hands for a minute before rolling out.

Roll out the dough to 1/8 inch thick. Use flour as needed to roll out the cookies.

For each shamrock, you will need 3 heart-shaped cookies. Place one heart on an ungreased cookie sheet, then put one heart on each side at a 90-degree angle so the tips at the bottom are overlapping. Gently press the cookies together where they overlap. Take a lump of dough the size of a small walnut. Roll into a rope. Press one inch of the rope onto the bottom of the shamrock. Shape the remaining rope into a stem and flatten gently. (Four or five shamrocks will fit on each cookie sheet.)

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 12 minutes, or until golden brown. Immediately remove the cookies from the cookie sheet and allow to cool.

When the cookies are cooled thoroughly, frost with shamrock icing. For added decoration, use cookie sprinkles, if desired.

Shamrock Icing
(makes enough to frost 2 dozen shamrock cookies)

3 cups of powdered sugar
1/4 cup soft butter or margarine
5 or 6 tablespoons milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
10 drops green food coloring

Measure the powdered sugar into a mixing bowl. Work the butter/margarine into the dry powdered sugar with a mixing spoon. Add salt and vanilla. Add the milk 1 tablespoon at a time and mix thoroughly after each addition. When the icing is finished, add the food coloring and mix thoroughly.

LeAnn R. Ralph is the author of the book, Christmas in Dairyland (True Stories from a Wisconsin Farm). She is working on her next book, Give Me a Home Where the Dairy Cows Roam. To read sample chapters, other Rural Route 2 stories and to sign up for the free monthly e-mail newsletter, Rural Route 2 News, visit — http://ruralroute2.com.

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