Happy Thanksgiving Baking – The Sandwich Generation Way

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Yummmm. The holidays do tend to bring strong family memories of days gone by when fun traditions included yummy cookies baking in the oven, pies waiting to go in, and grandparents, parents and children busy working on the next set of baked goods. We love to see that on commercials and Christmas movies, don’t we? Then reality sets in. Our children are grown, we are caring for our aging parents, and we have more grandchildren than we did children which makes for a bit of congestion in those kitchens! 

All right. I admit it. I was never that great at baking anyway, even though I used to bake my own bread frequently! Now, all of you who are wonderful at baking, with and without grandkids in the kitchen, smile sweet and enjoy those great baking marathons (and bring us over a plate of yummy sugar cookies, please 🙂 ).

For those of you in the Sandwich Generation, too busy dealing with the issues of caring for the elderly parents and babysitting grandchildren to spend hours prepping, or are not that enamored with baking, we can also make fun sugar cookie family memories with our grandkids. We’ll just cut a couple of sugar cookie corners.

The next time you are at the store, stock up on some of those wonderfully easy Pillsbury Sugar cookies – the dough rolls from the refrigerated section. Add some Cakemate Writing icing packages. These are tiny tubes with colored icing which the children can use to decorate the cookies. Even the smallest hands can squish them a little. I bought two packs of four small tubes. One was called Classic Colors and the other Pastel Colors. With that combination I was able to get at least one favorite color for each grandchild. Don’t forget some fun sprinkles like Betty Crocker’s Decorating Decors. We had stars and Red, White and Blue sprinkles. If you don’t already have them, you might also want to grab some fun unique holiday cookie cutters. 

You might find that the smaller mini-cookie cutters are better for this project. You can find cute Autumn and Thanksgiving cookie cutters at various stores. If you want to get a head start on some Christmas cookies to freeze, add Christmas cookie cutters as well. And, of course, you’ll need baking sheets, a bit of flour, and an oven. I would suggest using a big table or counter where messes can be made, enjoyed, and contained.

Set out all the goodies, gather round the grandkids, and start slicing away at the dough. (Do NOT make my mistake of cutting them too big or you will end up with a pan full of one giant cookie (although it was still quite tasty).

Give each child some sugar cookie circles to cut out and/or decorate to their heart's content. Even a currently dedicated non-baker like me (believe it or not, once upon a time, I used to cook everything from scratch!), can have fun with this.

And if the project has to be postponed due to health needs of an elderly parent, you should have no problem storing these simple ingredients. When done, pop your creations onto the baking pan, bake according to the directions, and enjoy. You might even want to make some extras to share with those sweet senior parents along with your neighbors. 

P.S. If you'd like to try this but prefer sugar cookie recipes made from scratch using an easy sugar cookie recipe, you might like the book, Cake Mix Cookies.  🙂