Day #3 of Rainbow Week – Rainbow Cookies

You’re looking at day three of our Rainbow Week series. Click here to start on day one.

Back in Richmond, where both Heather and I grew up, there’s a local chain of grocery stores called Ukrops. My family didn’t go there often (there were closer grocery stores and Ukrops was never open on Sundays), but I always looked forward to the times we did for one reason and one reason only: rainbow cookies. As Heather likes to remind me, they weren’t particularly good cookies. In fact, they were quite dry. But when you’re a kid there’s something awesome about multi-colored cookies; just like there’s something awesome about cereal that looks like cookies (Cookie Crisp you were, and are, so amazing).

Rainbow Cookie Dough

I haven’t been to Ukrops in a long, long time, but what Rainbow Week would be complete without rainbow cookies? Today’s recipe follows the same principles from our first post, with a few exceptions. First, because cookie dough is much thicker than cake batter, food color drops are really your only option. It’s just too difficult to mix and distribute the gel. Since most cookies are pretty dense (when compared to a cake), you’re options are a lot larger. Just don’t pick something, well, cake-y like a black and white cookie and you should be fine. Try with 5-10 color drops in the divided good and you should be good.

Blue Cookie DoughRed Cookie DoughTri-Color Dough

I decided to work with sugar cookies, a pretty simple and resilient cookie. You can work in one, two or three different colors (or more I suppose). With most sugar cookies I’d wager you’d have approximately three teaspoons of dough for each cookie, so divide the portions by the number of colors you want accordingly and put them together as shown. Then roll around in your hands until you get a smooth looking ball. Place them on a baking sheet and flatten them to the width specified with your recipe. That’s it!

Rainbow Sugar Cookies

Finding the Right Sugar Cookie Recipe

Most general cookbooks should have a sugar cookie recipe for you to use; and if it doesn’t you should write the author(s) a scathing letter. I personally used the one from Joy of Cooking (my cooking bible) for these.

If you’re looking for a good sugar cookie recipe, try Lydia’s recipe over at The Perfect Pantry. I’ve used it on many occasion with good results. Simply Recipes also has a recipe you could try. Enjoy!

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One Response to “Day #3 of Rainbow Week – Rainbow Cookies”

  1. Evan M. says:

    Bullspit! Rainbow cookies are delicious. I am in fact eating them now.