These cookies are perfect to make with preschool and elementary age children. The recipe is simple enough for children to mix and the dough, similar to play-doh, is easy to work with. We were able to make different letters of the alphabet and some numbers, over three dozen cookies in all. After the cookies were baked, they were glazed with a colorful lemon flavored sugar frosting.

We start by preheating the oven to 325° F. In a medium sized bowl, we place the half a stick of butter, cutting it into small pieces with a butter knife. We place the bowl in the microwave and microwave it for 30 seconds at 50% power. It is mostly melted so we just stir it with a heat-safe spatula until it is all melted. We set it aside.

In a large bowl, we place our fine strainer to use as a sifter. We measure out the flour, spooning in into the measuring cups and leveling off. We want ¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons of flour and add to the strainer. We also add 1/3 cup of the confectioners’ sugar and a sprinkle of salt. We sift into the bowl.

Into the melted, cooled butter, we stir the corn syrup and vanilla with the spatula. Carefully, we break the egg over a small bowl. We hold the egg yolk in our hand and let the white fall into the bowl. We add the egg yolk to the butter mixture, while the egg white is covered and refrigerated for another use.

We stir the butter mixture well and add to the flour mixture. We stir well with the spatula and then, using clean hands, we knead the dough in the bowl. The dough should be smooth.

We wash up and place parchment paper on two cookie sheets. We set these on the counter. We also place 2 large pieces of wax paper, about a foot each, on the counter to work on, and cover with the remaining flour.

We divide the dough in half, (we have 2 children who are working on this project!), and get to work making our letters. We pull off pieces of dough and roll them into ropes, bending them as necessary, to form different letters. We place the letters on the parchment covered cookie sheets and continue with the rest of the dough.

Our 6 year old and 4 year old are busy with this project and the “letters” range from spelling out their names, to making numbers for their ages, to making "X"s and "O"s to play tic-tac-toe later! The letters are of varying sizes. In the end, we have 42 cookies.

We place the cookie sheets in the oven and bake for about 10 minutes. We want the edges of the cookies lightly browned. We remove the sheets from the oven and place on racks, leaving the cookies to completely cool on the cookie sheets.

When the cookies are cooled, we make the icing. Using the fine strainer and another large bowl, we sift the remaining cup of confectioners’ sugar. We add a tablespoon of milk and the lemon juice and stir with a fork. It is a bit thick, so we thin it with a little more milk.

We spoon some of the icing into several small, snack-size plastic bags and add drops of food coloring to each bag to make the desired colors. We squish around the icing and then snip the ends of the bags to make a quick “pastry bag”. We also color the remaining icing in the bowl so that our daughter can use her finger to paint the icing on some of the cookies. Each cookie is iced as desired and allowed to dry.

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