Mother's Day Cookie Bouquet

While we all try to love and honor our mothers every day of the year, Mother's Day is the one day when we want to do something extra special for our moms. Flowers are always a nice touch, but why not do something a little different with those flowers this Mother's Day?

Here is a fun gift that will let Mom know how much she is loved, and which the kids will really enjoy helping with. You'll want to give yourself plenty of time to put this one together, so assemble the tools and ingredients at least a day ahead of time, then send Mom out for a day at the spa while you get busy in the kitchen.

What you'll need:

One new flowerpot
Florist's foam
Pretty ribbon for wrapping around the pot
24 new craft sticks
Shredded coconut
Liquid food coloring, including green
Several new paint brushes (for applying icing)
Flower-shaped cookie cutters, about 3 ½ inches diameter
One batch of sugar cookie recipe (below)
One batch of icing recipe (below)
Lots of enthusiasm

Begin by mixing up the sugar cookie recipe below. Don't forget to clean up as you go along.

Sugar Cookies

1/3 cup stick margarine, softened
1/3 cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch salt
2 cups all-purpose flour

In a medium mixing bowl, cream together margarine, shortening and sugar. Add egg and vanilla. Beat until smooth. In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt and baking powder. Stir flour mixture into shortening mixture just until moistened. Be careful not to over-work dough, or cookies will be tough.

Cover and chill about one hour, until dough can be easily rolled out.

While dough is chilling, prepare "stems" by mixing a few drops of green food coloring with a small amount of water and soaking craft sticks just long enough for the sticks to turn green. Lay sticks on clean paper towels to dry.
Prepare coconut by putting about 1 cup of coconut and 5 drops of green food coloring in a zippered food storage bag. Shake this up until the coconut is uniformly colored. Add more food coloring, one drop at a time, until coconut is the desired shade. Be careful not to make the coconut too moist.

Now it's time to bake those cookies.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

On a lightly floured surface, roll dough to ¼ inch thickness. Cut out with flower-shaped cookie cutters. Carefully insert one "stem" into the bottom of each flower, making sure at least an inch of the stem is inserted. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 8 to 10 minutes or until edges just begin to brown. Be careful not to over-bake.

After baking, allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for a minute or two before removing to wire racks to finish cooling. This recipe should yield about 24 cookies, but you'll want to choose just the best dozen for your Mother's Day Bouquet. While your cookies cool, prepare the icing.

Sugar Cookie Icing

1 cup confectioner's sugar
2 tbsp milk
2 tbsp light corn syrup
¼ tsp orange extract

Combine all ingredients, stirring until smooth. Separate into several dishes and use liquid food coloring to make each dish a different color. Icing should be slightly thick, but liquid enough to spread on with a paint brush.

Paint each cookie with icing and allow to dry completely. This may take several hours, depending on how thickly the icing is painted on.

Once the icing is dry, cookies may then be arranged in the flowerpot by placing florist's foam inside the pot and then inserting the stems of the cookies into the foam. Next, cover the surface of the foam with colored shredded coconut. As a final touch, tie a pretty ribbon around the flowerpot.

Your Mother's Day Cookie Bouquet is now ready to be presented to that special mom in your life.