Jo, My Gosh!: Far-out Cookies, Man...

I teach junior English in an urban high school in Baltimore. This week, our classroom was so hot and humid, and I was so impressed with how hard my kids worked, that I baked them cookies. I know, I know-- it's just the first week of school. But the kids were exceptional this week. And, because it's fun, I tie-dyed the cookies.

Cookies that I sent to Becky for her birthday!

I'm not a purist when it comes to the kitchen. I like making the most of my time, and honestly, I haven't yet found a sugar cookie recipe that is better than this mix:

I found this particularly huge bag of mix at Costco for about $6. Not too shabby.

Mix your cookie dough together, and then separate it into 3 equal parts. Using regular food coloring, dye the dough (red, yellow, and blue) to the shade you desire. I would suggest going darker rather than light so that you can get some really cool, vibrant colors.

Divide each color into about 3 parts. You want to cut out the dough in small batches so that the colors stay vibrant and fun... and not muddy towards the end. Then, be creative! Experiment with how you smoosh the dough together for some really fun patterns. To get you started...

Make sure that when you start out, you don't really mix the colors together. You'll end up getting mud by the time you're finished cutting all of the cookies out. By the time you roll out the dough the second or third time, the colors should be mixing and the cookies should be totally groovy, man. For my students, I just used a juice glass to cut out circles to make sure everyone got an exactly fair and equal cookie. Yo ucan use whatever cookie cutters you want. Maybe some sweet flower cutters?

Bake for 8 minutes at 375 (or until just the very edges get a tiny bit brown). You do NOT want to bake these so that the tops are brown, otherwise, the color dulls.

Et voila! Beautiful tie-dyed cookies just because!