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A perfect way to end your St. Patrick's Day meal is with these scrumptious ice cream sandwiches. These Shamrock shaped treats are sure to please all of the little Lads and Lassies at your St. Patrick's Day table!

What You Need

Sugar cookie dough - either store bought or your own recipe*
Medium to Large Shamrock cookie cutter
Green paste food coloring
Toothpick
A Pair of Latex gloves (protects from getting green hands!)
Flour
Rolling pin
Cookie sheets
Mint Chocolate Chip, Pistachio or Vanilla ice cream (tinted green), softened slightly


What You Do

*Tami has been kind enough to share hre foolproof sugar cookie recipe below!

If making homemade cookies, mix and leave finished dough in a non-porous bowl. If using store bought dough, unwrap and add to a non-porous bowl.

Put on your gloves. This next step can get a little bit messy.

Using a toothpick, dip it into the green food coloring, removing a tiny bit of food coloring. Add it to the cookie dough.

NOTE: A very little bit of this food coloring goes A LONG way to adding color to the dough. To be safe, start out using just a little and continue adding a little bit at a time until you reach the desired color.

Use your hands to mix the color into the dough. This process might take a few minutes but with continued mixing, the color will evenly spread throughout dough.

If the dough becomes too sticky, add a small amount of flour (approx. 1/4 cup) to the dough and mix together thoroughly.

Continue these steps until the desired color and consistency is reached.

Next, lightly flour the table where you are going to be rolling out the dough, to prevent the dough from sticking. Roll out the dough to 1/4 - 1/2 inch thickness.

Cut out the Shamrocks (2 for each sandwich) and place on an ungreased cookie sheet, making sure to leave enough room between the cookies so they don't bake together. Bake at 350 degrees F for 10 - 12 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are light golden brown. Cool completely before making ice cream sandwiches.

TO ASSEMBLE ICE CREAM SANDWICHES

Holding the bottom side of one cookie, spread the softened ice cream, nice and thick, onto the cookie. Top with second cookie. Fill in any uneven spots around the cookie. Smooth out rough edges with your finger to give a nice, smooth look.

Place onto a cookie sheet or plate, then back into the freezer. Freeze until solid.

Once frozen, you can serve as dessert or each sandwich can be individually wrapped in plastic wrap and kept in the freezer.

Tami's Old Fashioned Sour Cream Cookies

1/2 cup shortening (part butter or margarine)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
2 2/3 cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. nutmeg (optional) I leave it out for white cookies
1/2 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Mix shortening, sugar, egg, & vanilla thoroughly. Blend dry ingredients. Add to sugar mixture alternately with sour cream.

Divide dough, roll out on a well-floured board. Cut with cookie cutters (metal cookie cutters w/ open tops are the easiest) You can make these as thick as you want... the thicker, the chewier.

Place cookies on lightly greased baking sheets. Sprinkle with sugar unless you are going to ice them. Bake 7-8 minutes or until very lightly browned around the edges. Makes 3-4 dozen but I never get this many because I make mine thicker.

If you use the nutmeg in them, you don't even need the icing but it will give your cookies a slight off-white appearance if they are left un-iced.

If you like chewy cookies, roll them out a little thicker. If you like thin crispy cookies, roll a kind of thin but not real thin or you wont be able to remove to them from cookie pan.

This dough is very easy to work with too! I always double it because I like the thicker cookies.

What's Related:
Rainbow & Shamrock Cookies
Leprechaun Hat Cake
St. Pat's Goodies
St. Patrick's Day Cookie Pops

About the Author
Tami Rose lives in North Carolina with her husband and 2 children. She is always on the lookout for fun, easy crafts that any age group can make. She is the Assistant Administrator on the FamilyCorner.com forums. You can find her there under the username of "ajrsmom". She is also the Assistant Editor for FamilyCorner.com and provides valuable support for the website.

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