-by Jenny Harper
I’m ready for the summer celebration season! To kick it off, let’s give a cheer for Memorial Day as a perfect opportunity to show off by preparing a special, star-spangled dessert to take along to a community gathering.
Why star-spangled? Memorial Day brings out the red-white-and-blue in us all, giving us a good reason to gather together. And I love it, because my creative efforts in the kitchen can include fresh summer fruits. Since it’s a patriotic holiday, I look to red and blue berries for sweetly inspired desserts.
Stars and Stripes Cookies start with refrigerated chocolate chip cookie bar dough (an all-American favorite!) rolled out and cut with a star-shaped cookie cutter. These baked stars are frosted with a sweetened cream cheese and decorated with sliced strawberries and blueberries. And to top these flag-waving cookies? An additional shower of chocolate mini-morsels
Any kid I know loves to wave the red, white and blue!
- Short on kitchen time? Give kids some baking fun with new patriotic cookie shapes in the refrigerated section of the supermarket. Place and bake these flag, star and eagle-shaped cookies which come with white icing and red and blue sprinkles included for decorating.
- Provide mini-flags for decorating the picnic table.
- Let kids plant flower pots with petunias of scarlet, blue and white.
- Include vanilla ice cream berry toppings and whipped cream to accompany your patriotic cookies.
Whether you celebrate with an all-American block party, a family barbecue or a picnic in the park, do a little flag-waving with these whimsical cookies.
There are more great articles waiting for you on Jenny’s Very Best. You’ll also find fun and helpful tips, articles, recipes and more all over VeryBestBaking.com!
(/graphics/global/div_gold.gif)
NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® STARS AND STRIPES COOKIES
(Makes about 20 cookies)
PREHEAT oven to 350ºF.
ROLL cookie dough to 1/4-inch thickness between two pieces of wax paper. Remove top piece of paper. Cut cookie dough into stars with 3-inch star cookie cutter. Transfer cookies to ungreased baking sheet(s). (If stars are too hard to remove from wax paper, refrigerate rolled dough for 10 minutes.) Roll remaining dough to 1/4-inch thickness; cut out additional stars.
BAKE 10 to 12 minutes or until light golden brown. While hot, reshape and pat edges of each star back into shape with knife. Cool on baking sheet(s) 2 minutes; remove to wire rack(s) to cool completely.
BEAT cream cheese and sugar in small mixer bowl until fluffy. Spread onto cooled cookies. Place strawberry slices onto each cookie pointing outward. Place 5 to 6 blueberries in center of each cookie. Top each cookie with morsels.
Nutrition Information per Serving: 180 calories; 90 calories from fat; 10g total fat; 5g saturated fat; 25mg cholesterol; 135mg sodium; 23g carbohydrate; .5g fiber; 15g sugars; 2g protein