After watching Darby O’Gil and the Little People, I am half inclined to build a Sean Connery trap before I build a leprechaun trap, but that would not go down a treat with the real little people in my house, so leprechaun trap it is! And what better building material than cookies!
These are so simple to make and can be filled with whatever your children can dream up that might entice a tricky little man inside the box (true fact, there are no female leprechauns!). We used mini reese’s buttercups brushed with gold luster. After you empty out any leprechauns you catch, you have a tasty treat, the whole box is edible! And you will catch a leprechaun with these, but they are so tricky, so slippery, so ungraspable that you might only be left with a small trail of sprinkles in the morning and a tiny hat, or some green footprints leading away. We were lucky enough to have found a recipe worth its weight in gold that must have slipped out of a tiny pocket, and I will share it here tomorrow!
To make the box, just cut out two 3’’ squares (for the top and bottom of the box) and four 1.5’’x 3’’ rectangles out of your dough. Frost using two shades of brown, using a wet on wet method to swirl in a darker brown for the grain of wood. Or make your box shades of green, or a rainbow. If it looks good to you, it will look good to a leprechaun. I made two little knobs of extra dough to hold up the lid of the trap, we attached string to ours because having a way to shut the box was very important to my boys. Like the most important feature ever. Your leprechaun will still escape, but why make it easy on the little fellow?
Royal frosting held the box together and it was fun building them! Give them hours to dry before filling and moving and inspecting them. I hope you enjoy you pre-St. Pat’s festivities and if you do catch a little man in green, please feel free to send me any gold coins you can do without. But whatever you do, don’t make a fourth wish! Cheers!
alton brown's sugar cookie
Ingredients
- 3 c flour
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 c butter softened
- 1 c sugar
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 tbs milk
- powdered sugar for rolling out dough, or flour
Instructions
- sift together flour, baking powder and salt, set aside
- with stand mixer, beat sugar and butter until light and fluffy
- add egg and milk and combine
- add in flour, mixing on low. beat until mixture pulls from side of bowl
- make 2 disks of dough, place in plastic bag and put in fridge for at least 2 hours (longer is better, so egg protein has a chance to spread)
- pre heat oven to 375
- powder rolling surface or parchment paper with powdered sugar and roll out dough about 1/4'' thick. you can either pull dough away from cutter and leave shape on parchment paper or transfer the shape to another sheet of parchment paper using a spachula.
- place parchment paper on cookie sheet and bake for 9-11 mintues
royal icing
Ingredients
- 6 c confectioners sugar sifted!
- 3/4 c water
- 1/3 c meringue powder
Instructions
- with mixer on low, drizzle water over confectioners sugar
- mix on low for about 7 minutes, do not put mixer any higher than low or you get loads of air bubbles
- add coloring as needed, if you want thicker frosting, add more sifted confectioner sugar in 1/4 c increments