This year for Father's Day my family went to a local brewery. My dad loves to do different and fun things, so this was just the ticket! The brewery allowed picnic lunches, so my mom brought sandwiches and chips, and I brought cookies. I love to do themed things, and I'm known in my family to always bring some sort of themed dish to holidays. I've brought turkey and pumpkin shaped cheese balls to Thanksgiving, popcorn cupcakes to a movie night, all sorts of Christmas cupcakes, and on and on. I just love making things extra special! When I asked my mom what I could bring, she said cookies, so my mind went to work on how I could make themed cookies. Beer shaped cookies would be fun, I thought!
I got a bottle and beer mug cookie cutter, and I used
this recipe. In the past, when I've made cookies, they never seem to keep their shape, and since I had such cute cookie cutters, I wanted to make sure they would this time.
I gathered all of my ingredients:
Along with my new cute cookie cutters:
And I went to work. I will note, the beer mug shaped cookie cutter is copper, and the beer bottle cookie cutter is aluminum. The copper cookie cutter was so much easier to work with, because it was so much sturdier. The aluminum cookie cutter was a bit flimsier, so I had to be more careful when cutting the dough.
Also, my parents gifted me a Kitchen Aid mixer for Christmas and a marble rolling pin. It was so heavenly to work with these! I love to bake, but I've never used a mixer before; I've always done it by hand. It was so lovely and so fun to watch the mixer do the work!
I painstakingly followed the recipe, which includes making the dough, refrigerating it for 45 minutes, then rolling the dough to a certain width, refrigerating it again for 15 minutes, cutting the shapes, then freezing it for 15 minutes, all before baking. She says this is to keep the shape, and I think it did pretty well! Usually when I bake cookies they tend to spread out, sometimes leaving the shape indistinguishable, but these kept very well. When you roll the dough out for the first time, she says it takes a bit of elbow grease, and I can certainly say it does. I had to use my body weight, pushing down onto the roller to get them going.
I did half of the batch with just sugar, for any sugar cookie purists.
I decorated the other half with icing. For the bottles, I created a beer label and beer cap, and wrote "Pops Brew." I started calling my dad Pops some time ago, and it's stuck. My niece even calls him Pops instead of Grandpa. So cute! My dad has a mustache (he's very handsome!) and when we text, if he uses a smiley face, he inserts a mustaches like this :{) so a mustache label was fitting. The writing isn't perfect, but it's the thought that counts!
For the beer mug, I used yellow icing for the beer, and white icing for the foam.
I think these would be fun for a beer tasting party, bachelor party, Super Bowl party, man's birthday... the possibilities are limitless. And, I think you could get really creative with the beer labels!
The cookies were delicious, and perfectly soft in the centers and lightly crisped on the outside. I've never baked cookies with lemon extract before, and I was a bit worried that the flavor would be too strong, but it created a very nice flavor. Jake sampled the dough before it was cooked, and he thought it tasted a bit nutty. Either way, they were very good!
We had a blast at the brewery, and the cookies were a fun touch. So what do you think, are you going to make beer shaped cookies?
