What could be more fun than hosting a cookie baking party for a bunch of adorable little tidbits!? Not much in my opinion...
I am one lucky woman...I was graced with two beautiful little granddaughters within 7 days of each other. The gift that keeps on giving! A Grammy that loves all things "party" and 2 baby girl sprouts to share the fun. Need I say more???
I invited 8 little girlies. They ranged in age from 2 1/2 to 11. Our Sprouts are the 2 1/2 year olds. I thought they might be a bit young but they need to be versed in the way of parties in my opinion! I also invited the Mommies. I figured we would need some cookie building experts...
I had to put on my thinking cap and come up with a party menu that I could feel good about. Something kid friendly but also clean and relatively healthy. The cookies of course would have to be made completely from scratch and with the best possible ingredients. I had a bit of a dilemma with this. It's holiday time and I wanted to bake some tried and true traditional cookies. I didn't want to experiment with subbed ingredients for this. I needed everything to turn out. So, I opted for pure cane sugar and real organic butter. Sugar is a fact of life I'm still trying to navigate around. I decided to invite it to this particular party.
In hopes of counteracting outrageous sugar highs I opted for a fresh and kid friendly mini buffet.
A bowl of mixed nuts, thinly sliced carrots and celery (organic of course!) and some grape tomatoes. A larger bowl of clementines and homemade chicken nuggets with organic ketchup. (You know that most ketchup has high fructose corn syrup...right?) My beverage choice for the shorties was carrageenan free chocolate almond milk. All in all I was pretty happy with it.
Hubs helped me cut up the organic chicken into nugget sized pieces. I thought they looked pretty authentic!
Here they are just before I popped them in the oven. No pink slime here folks! I was so happy with them that I'm going to share the recipe I used. Hubs and I ate the leftovers for dinner! They are yummy!
Chicken Nuggets
1 1/2 pounds of organic boneless chicken breasts
1/2 cup of mayonnaise ( I use Whole Foods 365 brand)
1 teaspoon of lemon juice from 1/2 a fresh lemon
3 cups of breadcrumbs ( I use Panko crumbs for a nice crunch)
1 tsp. salt
pepper to taste
olive oil for the baking sheet
Wash and dry the chicken and cut into 2 X 2 pieces. In a shallow bowl combine the mayo and lemon juice and stir until smooth. In another bowl combine the breadcrumbs with the seasonings. Drop several pieces of chicken into the mayo mixture and coat. Then coat with the Panko crumbs and set on the oiled baking pan. Refrigerate the tray for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Bake the chicken for 25 minutes, turning once halfway through baking time.
I wanted the party to go smoothly and not have any lag time or down time waiting around for cookies to bake! I decided to go with three different recipes. A basic sugar cookie, a gingerbread cookie and a peanut butter blossom cookie. Hmmm...
I decided to make the gingerbread dough the night before. It needed to sit in the fridge for at least 4 hours or overnight.
It only took a few minutes to mix up. I divided the dough into two round discs and covered with plastic wrap. Boom...now all the "peanuts" would need to do is roll it out and make little men!
I also decided to make and BAKE one batch of sugar cookies. I wanted to keep things moving and have cookies ready to frost and sprinkle. Actually, I just baked half the batch and left the other disc of sugar dough in the fridge. Ready to go quickly if necessary.
My party supply station! Aren't the little rolling pins adorable? And, how bout those awesome red striped paper straws? I filled a soda fountain glass with plastic knifes for spreading frosting. Not pictured here but I purchased a roll of red plastic table covering. Slick for topping the tables for cookie making workstations...
Perfect weather for a holiday baking party? I think YES! (Hubs wasn't as excited about that part. He was out snow blowing the driveway for about 4 hours before the guests arrived)...
My favorite part of a party! Decorating the room and laying out the tablescape. I found red striped napkins to match the red striped straws that matched the red striped aprons! Booyah...
I have these amazing little glass vintage looking milk bottles. I get giddy every time I bring them out of storage! A couple of years ago I invested in these little white ceramic tapa plates. I use them a lot for entertaining. ( I found them at CB2)...I like serving on real dishes...even for the little ones. I find they are surprisingly careful...
My plan was to start off the baking with peanut butter blossoms. A quick and easy recipe that doesn't need the dough chilled. And, a fun hands on right off the bat! The Sprouts got to roll the dough into little one inch balls after helping me measure and pour the ingredients into the mixer. This is the recipe I used and I was really happy with it...except...I ended up having to use Hershey's kisses. I don't love Hershey's kisses. I couldn't find any GOOD chocolate brands in the shape of a kiss? Maybe they don't exist?
Aprons first of course!
Here is some serious cookie biz going on! These little cuties loved making the cookie balls and dipping them in the bowls of sugar. Bonus...these cookies were surprisingly "forgiving"! ;) Once baked they all turned into pretty uniform little circles! Ha!
I will definitely do this recipe at my next cookie bash...sans the Hershey's kisses if possible!
Once these guys were in the oven I pulled out the gingerbread dough. Oh my...I lost count but I think we made about a thousand ginger men! The little rolling pins were a big hit. Mommies did help occasionally with a "real" rolling pin...but, for the most part...these little guys rolled out dough like there was no tomorrow! Impressive!
I was blown away by their commitment to cookie making! The focus was crazy! The teeniest girls rocked it!
After the large army of gingerbread fellas were in the oven I pulled out the already baked sugar cookies! I had the Sprouts help me make butter cream frosting. They got to choose what colors to dye the frosting. I only did 2 colors...(lots going on!) How cute is this...they chose red and green! They were pretty intrigued at how the food coloring works! At this point, while the men were cooling off, the Sprouts went to town frosting and sugar sprinkling the sugar cookies. Have I mentioned how on task these little babes were??? Yes, I know I have, but it was truly amazing...this was a big deal!
For variety, I had a little sugar sprinkling tin and I let them sprinkle powdered sugar on the gingerbread men. Then, I had this funky colored chocolate in tubes. You put them in a bowl of hot water until the tubes are soft and pliable. When they were finished with the sugar cookies we re-visited the little powder sprinkled men and they got to put colored chocolate on them. I was thinking
Honestly...I'm pretty sure these are the cutest little kids on the planet! I love these girls! They amazed me...
Yeah...possibly the coolest cookie ever! Made by a very determined 2 year old. I can't lie...I'm proud!
Good times people! I LOVED this cookie baking party...I LOVED these adorable girls.
Each of them got to take home as many cookies as they wanted. We put some in little clear cello bags and tied them up fancy and special! They thought that was pretty cool, too!
I got over my white flour/sugar dilemma for this party. I took satisfaction in the fact that nothing came out of a tub or a box. There was no HFCS and no weird oils and additives. I was reminded again how quick and easy it is to make your own cookies and frosting. Over the years I lost sight of that...
Biggest thrill?! Realizing that my precious Granddaughters are going to LOVE parties like I do...I can't wait for the next adventure!
What a good Grammy you are. You do know to do parties well. I'm still appreciative for what you did for my mom's 80th!
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