Happy Easter - Sugar Cookies

I wanted to make a Easter Basket similar to the one on the cover of Martha Stewart's magazine. So, I decided to make cutout sugar cookies using the chick cookie template from the magazine along with a rabbit template I found online.

Here are all the ingredients I used:

• 2/3 cup flavored shortening
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 4 teaspoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

1. Cream shortening and sugar in a bowl.

2. Beat in egg, milk and vanilla.

3. Combine flour, baking powder and salt; add to the creamed mixture and mix well.

4.Bake at 375° for 8-10 minutes or until cookies are golden brown. I also made some royal icing and tinted 1/2 of it a pale purple.

First, I outlined the cookie with icing.

Then, I used a thinner version of the royal icing to fill in the outline.

I allowed the icing to set for a few hours.

For the larger sugar cookie rabbit I decided to cover it with chocolate.

I placed the rabbit in the refrigerator to allow the chocolate to set.

This rabbit will later be placed in another Easter basket.