St. Patrick's Day Cookies

PREHEAT oven to 350°F.

LINE cookie sheets with Reynolds KITCHENS^™ Parchment Paper with SmartGrid^®; set aside. No need to add extra grease or spray your cookie sheets.

KNEAD flour into sugar cookie dough until well blended.

ROLL out half of cookie dough at a time to 1/4-inch thickness between lightly floured sheets of Reynolds KITCHENS^™ Parchment Paper with SmartGrid^®. Using circles, shamrocks and leprechaun hat shaped cookie cutters, cut out cookies; place on parchment-lined cookie sheets 1" apart.

BAKE 7 to 12 minutes, depending on the size of the cookies or until the edges begin to brown. Let stand one minute on cookie sheets. Slide Parchment Paper with cookies onto a wire racks to cool completely.

DECORATING SUGAR COOKIES:

BEAT powdered sugar, meringue powder, water and extract in a large bowl, with an electric mixer, on high speed until smooth and thick, about 1 minute. DIVIDE icing into 8 small bowls. Keep one bowl of frosting white. Stir food coloring in remaining frosting to make green, neon green, black, yellow, blue, orange, and red icing. Cover icing tightly when not in use, icing dries quickly. PIPE outlines of cookies with contrasting colors of icing using a decorating bag with tip. Or, place icing in plastic zipper bags. Snip off one corner with scissors and use to pipe icing.

FOR SUGARED OUTLINES:

SPRINKLE heavily with sugar crystals while icing is wet. Lightly shake off excess crystals.

​TIP
Sprinkle over Parchment Paper to catch excess for reuse.

TO ICE INSIDE OUTLINES: ADD a little water to thin icing, if necessary. Spoon a small amount of icing onto outlined cookies. Using a brush, small spatula or your finger, spread icing up to outline to fill in spaces.

FOR POTS OF GOLD: PIPE black icing onto unfrosted round cookies to outline the handle and the shape of the pot. For the "gold", use yellow icing as the glue to attach yellow mini candy-coated candies. Tip: Dots of frosting can be substituted if yellow candies are not available in the quantities that you need.

FOR RAINBOWS: PIPE curved lines of colors of the rainbow around the top edge of round cookies. To make the clouds, use scissors to cut miniature marshmallows in half. Press the cut edge down on the ends of the rainbows.

FOR LEPRECHAN HATS: FOLLOW directions above for outlining and icing the hats with green frosting. Pipe chocolate frosting across cookies for a hat band. Pipe a square of yellow frosting for a buckle on the hat band. When icing is dry, pipe details of hat with green frosting.

FOR MESSAGE COOKIES: FOLLOW directions above for icing the cookies. While the icing is still wet, add a border of coordinating mini candy-coated chocolate candies; let dry. Pipe messages with either contrasting color icing or chocolate frosting.

TIP
Cover icing at all times. Icing can dry out quickly. Let icing dry before adding a different color of icing. If icing is still wet, colors will blend.