Indian Corn Cookies

Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by Imperial Sugar but it’s still an amazing recipe so keep reading people! 

My kids love to bake and help in the kitchen but sometimes it’s just not appropriate for them to help. Tonight my 8 year old daughter asked if she could take the whole turkey I was cooking out of the oven. There’s no way she could have safely lifted the hot turkey. However Imperial Sugar has a whole area of their website called Kids Kitchen which has amazing crafts and recipes to make with your kids. When I saw the Indian Corn Cookies on the site, I knew it would be the perfect Thanksgiving recipe for kids to help with in the kitchen.  The older two girls were outside playing (in the dirt… grrr) when I started pulling out the baking supplies and their aprons. The resident four year old’s eyes got really big as she asked, “Are we gonna hewlp you wifth bakin?”.  You could tell she was excited.  So while the older two played in the dirt, hoping I didn’t see them, the little one and myself played in the kitchen. We made the shortbread cookie dough while hoping that they wouldn’t find us. It was a sweet time just to spend with the little one since she gets to spend the least amount of time in the kitchen with me.  She also happens to be the one least likely to share how much raw cookie dough I ate while the older two would have been texting every contact in my phone about it.  I let her help me make the dough and then her and I together rolled it out and cut it using a carrot cookie cutter. If you want to make these, you can cut them by hand. It’s a really easy dough to work with (and tastes yummy).  If you look close you’ll also see her super cute alligator rolling pin that her grandmother bought her.  Finally it was time to let the older two girls in on the secret because they live for frosting and that was the next step. They were thrilled to find out that they were going to get to ice cookies. I was thrilled that it was only white icing and my floor wouldn’t look like the Willy Wonka factory exploded when we finished.  We iced the cookies with buttercream icing and then arranged Reeses Pieces candy on top to make it look like the beautiful corn kernels of Indian Corn. If your child is allergic to peanuts and peanut butter, you can use red, yellow and brown M&M’s.  We didn’t have the raffia that the recipe called for so instead we cut brown paper bags into ovals larger than the cookies and accordian folded them to make them look like corn husks.  We tied the brown paper bag husks around the cookies with twine and then they were ready.    They were the perfect treat to finish off our week of learning about Squanto and the early settlers.  The United States history would most likely be very different if Squanto hadn’t of taught the early settlers how to farm using fish to grow corn.   These are fun and easy to make. I highly recommend them. You can find the recipe here – Indian Corn Cookies.  Check out the Kid’s Kitchen area of ImperialSugar.com. What are you going to make with your kids? If you show Imperial Sugar what you make you could win a $50 giftcard!