Regan was "Fabulous"!

Well, we survived the weekend of non-stop dance! Regan was awesome. She did so well and smiled so big. We are so proud of her! After three days of rehearsals and performances, Regan is still bouncing off the walls, while I can hardly stand I am so tired! It was a lot of fun though, despite the exhaustion. Both Friday night and all day Saturday I got to be in the thick of things back stage as mic assistant. I had so much fun I am thinking about going back to help next year even if Regan does not take a class :) Today we brought the other kids and we all sat in the audience and got to watch Regan dance. I will post some pictures tomorrow, but until then, I am posting some pictures of the lollipop cookies I made for the girls in Regan's class.

These cookies have some history. When the girls got to see their costumes in the catalog, before they came in, the models wearing their fabulous costumes were holding big lollipops. All the girls were sad to learn that that they were not going to get lollipops with their costumes. I had planned to give Regan a big lollipop after the show in stead of flowers, but when I saw these I knew that they would be perfect for the girls, so I decided to give the cookies a shot and they turned out pretty cute! They were a huge hit with the girls and lots of fun to make.

Lollipop cookies

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 3 ounces cream cheese
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• assorted colors of paste food coloring
• 24 lollipop sticks
  

Directions:

1. In a bowl cream butter, cream cheese and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; beat until smooth.
2. In a medium bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture. Stir till soft dough forms. Divide dough into fourths. Tint each with a different food color. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Working with half of each color, shape dough into 3/4 inch balls and for each cookie place 1 pink, 1 green, 1 blue and 1 orange ball together to make 1 large ball. Shape into a 12 inch long roll (like a snake), starting at one end, coil roll to make a 2 3/4 inch round cookie. Place cookies 3 inches apart on lightly greased baking sheet. Carefully insert lollipop sticks into bottoms of cookies.
4. Bake cookies for 8 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool and store in an airtight container.

Here are pictures of our processthe colors I used

I refrigerated the dough for a hour then made these ball and refrigerated them for another 30+ minutes.

before I baked

after I baked

all wrapped up and ready for the girls!

a perfect match for the costume!