I am a child at heart. I love anything Disney, fuzzy, or colorful. When the new Muppet movie came out, I was at the theater opening day. I loved the cheesy plot, the new songs mixed with the classics, and of course, the Muppets themselves.
Ever since the movie came out, I have been humming
Rainbow Connection to myself, and it was that song that inspired my latest creation.
The circles are thimble cookies, which is a fancy name for mini sugar cookies. I adapted a
Food Network recipe in order to get the taste and workability with the dough. The my recipe calls for:
- 8 ounces (2 sticks) room temp. butter cut into pieces (I sliced then cubed my pieces, which was probably just extra work. I would just slice the butter thinly)
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 egg yolks (Most likely when I make this recipe again I will just use the whole eggs)
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (I just eyeball it)
- 1/2 or so of almond extract. (Just add to your taste preference or any other flavored extract. Peppermint would be delicious!)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- Food coloring (If you want to!)
Using the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar together until a fairly smooth consistency. With the mixer on a low speed, slowly add the rest of the ingredients. I like to add the liquids first, which gives the flour something to absorb and stick to. I also add my flour in 1/4 cup intervals to prevent a cloud of flour puffing up from the mixer.
After adding all the ingredients and making sure your batter is to your taste, separate the batter into sections in individual containers: one container for each color you plan on mixing. I separated mine into four sections. Hint: Use old containers. If it is a favorite or snazzy container, don't use it. You will most likely dye the container the color of the dough! I save cool whip containers, butter containers, etc for this very reason. Make sure your coloring is food grade. In this coloring process, I used the drops because I didn't want to miss with the gel.
I let it chill for about an hour. Five minutes before taking the dough out, I preheated the to 350 degrees F. The dough needs to be rolled out to about 1/4 inch thinkness on a fairly heavily floured area so it can be cut. The dough tended to stick to the roller, so I floured the top of the dough and used the wax paper it was wrapped in as a buffer between dough and roller. Before cutting, the cookie cutter needs to be rimmed in flour so the dough doesn't stick. I also had to work quickly, because if the dough got too warm, it did not want to cut very well. I cut my dough into two sizes: very small and medium.
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| Be ready to make a mess. |
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The smaller circles took five minutes to bake, whereas the bigger circles took about eight to ten. Make sure you keep a semi-close eye on the cookies, because being so thin and tiny, they tend to brown quickly.
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| Note the cookie at the top right: A little too much browning to look cute on the cake. |
After making the cookies, I followed the Betty Crocker yellow cake recipe. You can use your favorite cake recipe or favorite box mix; just make sure you make two 8 or 9 inch circle cakes or squares. You will not get the same cute pop effect on a flat rectangle cake. For icing, I used a can. I wanted to make my own; however, with butter about five bucks for four sticks right now, the can stuff was cheaper and it is tasty too! I used plain vanilla, but again, pick your favorite flavor!
After icing the cake, the fun stuff begins: decorating!! I separated my cookies by size and color to make seeing what I had to work with easier.
Just have fun; put the circles in any pattern you want. If you have children, they will have a blast decorating with cookies. Don't over think the placement because this cake is whimiscal!
After placing your cookies, pop in The Muppets Take Manhattan, get a tall glass of milk, a large slice of cake, and ENJOY!
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