Snowmen Cookies

Have a decorating party featuring snowmen (and women) cookies! Your little bakers will love using all the decorations--frosting, pretzel sticks, spice drops, and sprinkles.

Supplies:
1 roll (18 oz.) refrigerated sugar-cookie dough
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 bag (12 oz.) white-chocolate chips
2 tbsp. vegetable shortening
2 orange spice drops, cut into quarters
1 can (16 oz.) vanilla frosting
Red and blue paste food coloring
White and pink confetti sprinkles
8 small pretzel sticks
1 tube black decorating frosting

You’ll also need:
2 cookie sheets
Parchment paper
Rolling pin
2 plastic resealable bags

Kitchen Tip:
Make sure the frosting is at room temperature. This will make it much easier to work with.

Directions:

Step 1
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Step 2
Knead the cookie dough and the flour on a clean work surface until smooth. (Kids can help with this part.) Divide the dough in half and roll out one piece to a scant 1/4-inch thickness. Help your kids learn about shapes by cutting out and assembling the different parts of the snowmen. Use round cookie cutters of three different sizes for the snowmen bodies (circles) and use scraps of dough to make the hats (squares and rectangles) and snowmen noses (triangles).

Step 3
Transfer the shapes to the sheet pans. Roll any scraps with the remaining dough and continue cutting out shapes until you have eight snowmen.

Step 4
Bake the cookies until golden brown, about 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer them to a wire rack and cool completely.

Step 5
Parents should heat the white-chocolate chips and the shortening in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally until just melted. Remove from the heat, but leave the bowl over the pan to keep the chocolate fluid. Carefully dip the cookies to coat just the tops of the snowmen in white chocolate up to their hats. (This is a job for grownups.) Allow the excess chocolate to drip away over the bowl and return the cookies to the sheet pans.

Step 6
Kids can now add the piece of orange spice drop for the nose while the chocolate is still wet. Continue with the remaining cookies. Refrigerate until set, about 5 minutes.

Step 7
Tint half of the vanilla frosting pink and half of the frosting light blue with the paste food color. Spoon each color into a resealable bag.

Step 8
Snip a small corner from the pink-frosting bag and help kids pipe a hat and skirt on four of the cookies. Pipe several pink dots for buttons. Add a white confetti sprinkle to the skirt and hat. Use a dot of frosting to attach the pretzel sticks as arms.

Step 9
Snip a small corner from the blue-frosting bag and help kids pipe on a hat and a vest to the remaining cookies. Add the confetti sprinkles and pretzel sticks. Lastly, pipe the eyes and mouth with the black tube frosting. Let the cookies set for at least 1 hour.

Kitchen Tip
An alternative method for adding the white chocolate mixture to the snowmen is to apply it with a pastry brush.