After years of begging, I finally gave in and let my son have his birthday party at Chuck E Cheese. I thought he had given up on the idea because when we went to his first party there last year, he was sitting up near the stage eating his pizza when the Chuck E Cheese character on the stage came to life and scared the bejeezus out of him. Then after we moved him to the other end of the table and convinced him that Chuck E Cheese was just a mechanical mouse attached to the stage, not a real giant mouse that could get him, a guy in a giant Chuck E Cheese costume came out and started making his rounds with the kids. My son almost fainted! But, like many other "traumatic" events in a young child's life, he got over it quickly, and resumed his campaign to have his own party there! Fortunately, he conquered his fear of Chuck E Cheese and had a great time (although he refused to go on the stage with the robotic one).The party was pretty much effortless. We just showed up with a cake and some favors. I knew the kids would be cashing in all the tickets they won playing games for little trinkets, so I decided to keep it simple with the party favors and just made cookies for the kids to take home.And seeing as it was a pizza party......PIZZA COOKIES!
I used my favorite recipes for the cookies and icing:
The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies and Sugar Cookie Icing
We also had a special guest with a dairy allergy, so I made a batch of dairy free cookies that were super yummy!
DAIRY FREE ROLLED SUGAR COOKIES:
Ingredients
1 1/2 Cups Butter Flavor Crisco
3 TBSP Water
2 Cups Sugar
4 Eggs
1 Tsp Vanilla
5 Cups All Purpose Flour
2 Tsp Baking Powder
1 Tsp Salt
Instructions
Cream Crisco, Water and Sugar together. Add eggs and vanilla until well mixed. Stir in flour, baking powder and salt. Cover dough with saran wrap and chill overnight. When ready to bake, roll out dough to about 1/4 inch thickness, cut with a circle cookie cutter and bake at 400 degrees for 6-8 minutes. Allow to cool before icing.
DAIRY FREE ICING: Mix 2 cups of powdered sugar, 1 tsp clear vanilla, 4 tsp almond milk or soy milk and 4 tsp corn syrup until well blended. Add food coloring as desired. Add almond milk by the tsp to thin icing if it is too thick.
I decorated these pizza cookies by putting a layer of red icing in the center and letting it set, then used a squeeze bottle to squirt the "mozzarella" icing and adding a few green sprinkles before it set. Then once that layer was dry, I went back with my red icing and made the "pepperoni".
Then I just bagged them up and added a little tag I made using PicMonkey!
For these pizza cookies, I used the plain circle cookie cutter from www.cheapcookiecutters.com, although they have a really cool Pizza Slice Cookie Cutter and I would use that next time! I might even get motivated to make a little pizza box instead of a clear bag.
Ciao!!!
-Blythe
Places I'm Partying:
www.the36thavenue.com
www.lilluna.com
www.thenymelrosefamily.com
www.gingersnapcrafts.com
www.oneartsymama.com
www.becomingmartha.com
www.tatertotsandjello.com
