Cooking with Kids: Alphabet Cookies

By Tara C.

If you have small people hanging around, i.e. children, this is a fun recipe to make with them. It's one part craft, one part baking. The dough handles like modeling clay, so kids can shape the dough into letters, numbers, or any other shape they want.

While making these cookies into the shapes of the kids' initials, my 5-year-old daughter realized that she has been mispronouncing her little brother's name for his entire life. "Honey, your brother's name actually starts with a T, not an F." So, I guess this was a pretty big Life Moment. Thanks, educational cookies!

The recipe comes from the Preschooler's Busy Book by Trish Kuffner, which is a great resource for games and activities for 3 to 6-year-olds.

(photo from: Goodreads.com)

Now, I have made a lot of cookies in my time. And I've eaten a lot, too. This is the only cookie recipe I know of that uses hard-cooked egg yolks in the dough. That just seems weird. But, the resulting cookies are very tasty, so somehow it works. That might have something to do with the large quantity of butter. This recipe also uses a lot of yolks. I used the leftover hard-booked whites in an egg-salad.

(photo from: me)

Alphabet Cookies
Recipe from The Preschooler's Busy Book by Trish Kuffner

Ingredients:
4½ cups unsifted all-purpose flour
1½ cups butter
3 hard-cooked egg yolks
¾ cup sugar
3 raw egg yolks
1½ teaspoons vanilla
Colored sugar or chocolate chips (optional)-I omitted

1. Measure flour into a large bowl.

2. Cut butter into small pieces and add to the flour. Mix with your fingers until the flour and butter form fine crumbs.

3. Mash cooked egg yolks with sugar and stir into the flour mixture.

4. Blend raw egg yolks with vanilla and stir into the flour mixture with a fork.

5. Press the mixture with your hands into a firm ball. Work with the dough at room temperature, but refrigerate it if you will bake it later.

6. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

7. Roll out the dough. Cut 3-inch or 4-inch strips and roll with your palm to make ropes.

8. Shape the ropes into letters. Flatten them slightly so they are about 1/4-inch thick. If you like, decorate the letters with colored sugar or chocolate chips.

9. Place the letters on a cookie sheet and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Comments

[Matt]

We made a few alphabet pancakes the other day and our 2-year old wanted a second pancake and we were out of letters. Luckily we reminded him he had an "O" in his name, he went for that.

[Steph]

I recognize those chunky little hands. That looks like a project that I, myself would enjoy thoroughly!

[Christy M]

I've seen a cookie recipe in Cook's Illustrated that called for hard-cooked egg-yolks. I want to say it was something like knock-off pecan-sandies or something similar. The yolks were important for a sandy texture I think.

I'll make those cute alphabet cookies as soon as my kid learns his alphabet! What a darling idea.

[Tara C.]

Hi Christy, thanks for your comment! I just googled hard-cooked egg-yolks in cookies and it looks like a lot of Eastern European cookie recipes use them and they provide a sandy, delicate crumb. Interesting! It looks like this method may not be as unusual as I thought.