Recipes & Cooking Ideas
from Wisconsin artisans

GRACE'S PANTRY - CARROT COOKIES
By Grace Howaniec

SOMETHING home baked puts a special touch on our Easter or Spring baskets. For years, our family has baked a carrot-shaped butter cookie decorated with soft green and orange icing to add to the fun of Easter goodies These thin, melt-in-your-mouth cookies disappear quickly and are hoarded by kids of all ages.

Carrot cookie cutters can be found in variety stores, craft stores, hardware stores, kitchen ware specialty shops and even hardware stores. These cookies can be baked well in advance, frozen and frosted before serving. And frosting them is an ideal project for children since the icing is put on free form in a child-friendly format. Happy Easter!

CARROT COOKIES

COOKIES:

• 2/3 cup Wisconsin unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 2 tablespoons milk
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large lemon
• 2 cups flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt

FROSTING:

• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter
• About 3 tablespoons milk
• Red, yellow and green food coloring
  

1. To make cookies, cream together in large mixing bowl with electric mixer, butter and sugar on medium-high speed of mixer until lighted-colored, 1 minute. Beat in egg, milk and vanilla extract.

2. Grate lemon peel to yield 2 teaspoons lemon peel, reserve lemon and stir peel into creamed mixture; set aside.

3. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in medium mixing bowl. Gradually add to creamed mixture blending on low speed with mixer until well combined. Chill in refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

4. Roll out dough on lightly floured board to 1/8-inch thickness. Use a cookie cutter in shape of a carrot, if possible.

5. Bake on ungreased cookie sheets (about ½ inch apart) at 375 degrees for 7 to 8 minutes or until golden. Remove to cooling rack with metal spatula.

6. Meanwhile, make frosting by cutting lemon in half and squeezing 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to add to powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon butter and 3 tablespoons milk. Add additional milk if necessary. Scoop1/2 cup of frosting into a cup and tint with 2 drops of green food coloring. Tint remaining frosting with 4 drops each of red and yellow food coloring. Frost tops of carrots with green frosting to represent leaves; carrots with orange frosting. Let frosting harden for about 1 hour. Store, covered, in refrigerator up to 3 weeks. Makes 45 carrot cookies.

Grace Howaniec is a Midwestern food columnist and cookbook author. Her work has appeared in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The Chicago Sun-Times, The St. Cloud (MN) Times and The Post-Crescent (Appleton, WI). Her popular columns, Grace-Before Meals and Sunday Dinner currently appear in The Post-Crescent (www.post-crescent.com) Her new cookbook, 101 Practically Foolproof Recipes Almost Anyone Can Make joins her previously published cookbooks, The Sunday Cook Collection (out-of-print) and Encore Wisconsin, a collection of chef's recipes from Wisconsin inns and restaurants, published by Amherst Press, Amherst, Wisconsin. Grace lives with her well-fed husband in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. You can enjoy more of Grace's home-tested, Wisconsin-flavored recipes by ordering her latest cookbook, 101 Practically Foolproof Recipes Almost Anyone Can Make.

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