Cookies For Family Fun

By Lourdes Mane

There are lots of reasons parents are baking with their kids nowadays. The delectable result is naturally on the list. But just as significantly, baking with children is a great way to pass some time with them and to teach them things at the same time you are all having a good time.



Baking homemade cookies with any or all of your kids is a naturally enjoyable activity. Cookies are portable, exciting and enjoyable to make. They can be made in stages if time is tight-prepare the dough in the evening and bake them the next morning. Older children can read the recipe and direct adults on what steps to follow. Youngsters can roll the dough into balls and flatten it with a fork, like making peanut butter cookies. There's enough fun to go around for everyone.



What makes your cookies even better is to add corn starch to the dough. In reality many recipes for baked products from the early 20th century used corn starch in conjunction with flour. Bakers found very early on that corn starch gave biscuits, muffins, cakes, shortcakes, pie crusts and most particularly cookies a finer texture and tenderer crumb compared to recipes using flour alone. Cooking books produced then by the specialists at Argo and Kingsford's Corn Starch bear this out. In fact , Argo, established in 1892, has offered their clients cookie recipes since its really early years.



Here's a recipe for Lemon Shortbread Cookies that's simple and mouth-watering and should make for a bunch of family fun.



Lemon Shortbread Cookies



11/3 cups Argo or Kingsford's Corn Starch



2 cups butter or margarine



2/3 cup ground sugar



1 teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel



1/2 small spoon vanilla



2 cups all-purpose flour



Makes six dozen



Preheat the oven to 350F. In a big bowl, beat butter until softened. Add ground sugar, beat till well combined. Add lemon peel and vanilla; beat well. In a mid sized bowl, stir together flour and corn starch; add to blend and beat well.



Roll dough into 1-inch balls (children will love this). Place on ungreased cookie sheets. Press tines of a fork atop each ball to make subtle design. Bake about 15 minutes or till bottoms are slightly browned. Cool on wire racks.



Are you looking for more info like this? Cookies.

About the Author:

Lourdes Mane is a writer with an interest in a wide variety of topics. Lemon Shortbread Cookies You can visit her site for helpful tips. Baking With Youngsters