Watermelon Cookies

When I saw these watermelon cookies in the Taste of Home magazine that came to my house, I knew I had to try them with my girls!  Before I start, however, I must warn you, these cookies take 2 days to make (because of chill time) and they are a little harder than I expected (that’s why there’s not any pictures in the middle of us making them).  The girls had a ton of fun making them though, and they turned out super cute!

I realize that I spelled Watermelon wrong in my pinable photo, however, I needed to do some editing to the photo to remove the blue color cast and I just didn’t feel like editing it all over again…

To make watermelon cookies of your own, you’ll need:

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• Red and green gel food coloring
• 1/3 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips 

Step 1)  Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and almond extract.  In a different bowl, whisk flour, baking powder and salt then gradually beat into creamed mixture. Set aside 1 cup  of dough.

Step 2)  Tint remaining dough red (yes it’s a lot of red dough).  Shape the red dough into a 3-1/2-in.-long roll. Wrap it in plastic wrap.

Step 3)  Tint 1/3 cup of the reserved dough green and wrap it in plastic wrap. Wrap remaining plain dough in plastic wrap. Refrigerate all the dough for 2 hours or until firm.

This is where it got hard and I forgot to take photos…

Step 4)  On a lightly floured surface, roll the plain dough into an 8-1/2  x3-1/2-in. rectangle.

• Yes, we used a ruler to measure!

Step 5)  Unwrap the red dough and place it on a short end of the plain dough then roll it up.

• It’s a bit tricky with kids to get the red and the plain dough to match up.

Step 6)  Roll the green dough into a 10 x 3-1/2-in. rectangle. Place red and plain roll on a short end of the green dough and roll it up. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

• I suggest you leave your green dough in the fridge while you roll the plain and red dough together.  Our green dough got soft quickly as was hard to get it to roll to the proper size.  It was then even harder to warp around the other dough.

The next day…

Step 7)  Preheat the oven to 350°. Unwrap and cut the dough into 3/16-in. slices (just less than 1/4 in.). Place 2 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets.

Step 8)  Lightly press chocolate chips into red dough to resemble watermelon seeds.

Step 9)  Bake 9-11 minutes or until firm. Immediately cut cookies in half. Remove to wire racks to cool. 

oThe recipe says it’s yields 3 dozen cookies but we got about 2 dozen.

My girls couldn’t help but eat these cookies like watermelons too!