Easter Baby Chick Icebox Cookies

Easter Baby Chick Icebox Cookies are an adorably sweet, decorated cookie treat for your Easter baskets or Easter brunch table.

Look at me and my springy self.

Every now and then I get the urge to be girly. Really girly. I picture myself in cute dresses, ribbons, and bows. The reality of it is, I'm just a jeans and a t-shirt kind of girl no matter what I may want.

However, I can be cute in the kitchen. And so can these adorable Easter baby chick cookies.

I first saw the idea for shaped icebox cookies on Foodgawker and though it was an awesome idea. I knew I wanted to try making Easter baby chick icebox cookies, but like all new things, it was going to take practice. The cookies on Diamonds for Desserts are adorable and perfect, with practice some day I will be too.

Easter Baby Chick Icebox Cookies

Inspired by the adorableness and recipe from Diamonds for Desserts, adapted from The ATK Family Baking Book

Ingredients:

• 2 ½ cups flour (will vary in dough modifications)
• 16 teas butter, softened
• ¾ cup sugar
• ½ cup powdered sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 teas vanilla extract
• 1 tbs lemon zest
• yellow food coloring
• green food coloring for the eyes
• white chocolate

Preparation:

Cream the butter and the two sugars together. Mix in the egg yolks one at a time. Then, mix in the vanilla extract.

Split the mixture that you have so far in thirds and set aside for now. Get two separate bowls. To one bowl, add 1 cup flour. Add one third of the previously split mixture. Mix until you get a dough.

To the other bowl, add 1 ¼ cup + 2T flour, lemon zest and mix. Then add the remaining two thirds of the previously split mixture and mix. Add yellow food coloring (add more or less to your liking). Now you should have one vanilla cookie dough and one yellow cookie dough.

Place the vanilla dough on a piece of plastic wrap. Roll it so it forms a log with a 2 cm diameter. Sandwich the yellow dough between two sheets of plastic wrap. Use a rolling pin to roll it out to a 1.5 cm thick rectangle as long as the vanilla dough log. Now use the rolling pin to flatten the sides of the rectangle. The middle should remain thick and the sides should be able to wrap around the vanilla dough log.

Wrap the yellow dough around the vanilla dough log. Use your fingers to smooth out the crease formed. Cover the entire log in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 325°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Once the dough is firm, remove from the refrigerator. Slice ¼" thick slices from the dough logs and place the cookies onto the baking sheets. Chill cookie slices for 10 minutes. Place in the oven to bake for 12-15 minutes. Let cool on the baking sheets for 3 minutes, then move the cookies to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

Melt the white chocolate and pour a little into a zip-lock bag. Snip a tint bit off of the corner and draw the wings. Add a few drops of yellow food coloring to the remaining white chocolate and spoon into another plastic bag, snipping off a small corning to draw the beak and feet. Repeat the same steps but with green (or any color of your choice) to make the eyes.

**Please go check out the Diamonds for Dessert site for all of the adorable cookies featured there, as well as step by step instructions of how to shape the dough**

Get your toothbrushes ready, because the Easter baby chick is just the beginning. There's a lot more sugar to come this week.