(Family Features) - I'm ready for the summer celebration season! To kick it off, let's give a cheer for Memorial Day as a perfect opportunity to show off by preparing a special, star-spangled dessert to take along to a community gathering.
Why star-spangled? Memorial Day brings out the red-white-and-blue in us all, giving us a good reason to gather together. And I love it, because my creative efforts in the kitchen can include fresh summer fruits. Since it's a patriotic holiday, I look to red and blue berries for sweetly inspired desserts.
Stars and Stripes Cookies start with refrigerated chocolate chip cookie bar dough (an all-American favorite!) rolled out and cut with a star-shaped cookie cutter. These baked stars are frosted with a sweetened cream cheese and decorated with sliced strawberries and blueberries. And to top these flag-waving cookies? An additional shower of chocolate mini-morsels.
Any kid I know loves to wave the red, white and blue!
- Short on kitchen time? Give kids some baking fun with new patriotic cookie shapes in the refrigerated section of the supermarket. Place and bake these flag, star and eagle-shaped cookies which come with white icing and red and blue sprinkles included for decorating.
- Provide mini-flags for decorating the picnic table.
- Let kids plant flower pots with petunias of scarlet, blue and white.
- Include vanilla ice cream berry toppings and whipped cream to accompany your patriotic cookies.
Whether you celebrate with an all-American block party, a family barbecue or a picnic in the park, do a little flag-waving with these whimsical cookies.
For more easy and delicious summer time recipes visit www.verybestbaking.com
Jenny Harper is Senior Culinary Specialist for the Nestlé Test Kitchens and VeryBestBaking.com