For the Cookie Loving Football Fan

From "Christmas Cookies" by George Strait

A member at ABC Rider Fans Facebook Group asked that I post my recipe of cookies which were pictured at the end of Friday Footbal 5.  I saw a meme last week that says every recipe blog starts off with how the blogger was out for a wintery walk and it reminded them of tobogganing as a child and yadda yadda yadda and the poster just wanted to hurry up and get to the recipe and who cares about the other stuff.  While I do feel the pain of having to navigate all that nonsense to get to the real information I think we all want to share our warm fuzzy memories of the season with our readers, family and friends.

I was not an athletic person whatsoever so I've mentioned my last bit about tobogganing, but what I can tell you is that some of my fondest Christmas memories are of my Mom and me baking cookies. I remember having to kneel on a kitchen chair at the cupboard and watching with wild anticipation as Mom would roll out the dough and then we'd choose just the exactly right cookie cutters.  I was really blessed to have a childhood which contains sweet memories like these.  I was equally fortunate to have a niece and nephew who I was close to, so when I was older and married I'd invite them to my house to make cookies.  One year in particular, my niece was sick and couldn't come for cookie decorating so my nephew and I did it but put some aside in a special care package to take to her.  She proclaimed that the Christmas cookies held special healing powers because upon eating them she immediately was feeling better.

Flash forward to rabid Saskatchewan Roughrider @smilingriderfan.  I purchased a set of Wilton Football Themed cookie cutters several years ago.  This LINK will take you to the American website however you can likely still pick them up at Michael's Craft Store (as I did) or if you like to avoid real shopping during this time of year, they are also in stock on Amazon.ca.  The set includes shapes for pennants, footballs, jerseys and helmets.  I only used the jerseys and helmets although the recipe, which is coming up soon, makes enough cookies for the whole neighbourhood and then some, but I also felt I needed to make Christmas shapes too.  Of course you may have a favourite sugar cookie recipe or you might not have the time and in that case Pillsbury will do just fine.

Makes 5 dozen cookies

Without dragging it out farther... here is the recipe for Mom's Sugar Cookies.  There isn't any special instructions except throw it all in a mixer to combine.  Form it into a roll, wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.  If you don't refrigerate the dough it will be pretty much disastrous and frustrating as the dough won't be able to be worked with.  Roll out the dough and cut into shapes, football themed or otherwise and bake at 350 degrees for approximately 8 minutes.  I use silicon mats on my baking sheets so the cookies don't get overly brown and so cleanup is a snap.  One substitution you can make is the butter/shortening.  You can use margarine instead and the recipe still turns out wonderfully.



Once the cookies are completely cooled you can frost them with your favourite method.  Back as a kid we'd just use your regular butter cream home made frosting with a myriad of sprinkles.  These days because my Hubby calls sprinkles "gravel" I bypass that method.  This year I purchased Cakemate Cookie Icing in various colours and although it didn't turn out to be my favourite product the cookies turned out pretty and tasty.

Go Riders!

Maybe you want to make a batch of these for your favourite Riders fan or just make some sweet memories with some close family members.  I hope this blog, even though it's strayed from it's normal football talk, was enjoyable to read and if it was please share it with others on your Christmas list.  Nothing says love like a home made gift wrapped stack of sugar cookies shared with our CFL family and friends.

Oh Snap! Looks pretty happy for a guy who just lost a leg!