Pilgrim Hat Cookies for Kids by Kids

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...With Halloween and Thanksgiving just around the corner, I wanted to give these "cookies" a test run for the holidays. They were created by two very young chefs, Megan and Mitchell Vogel, from Jefferson, Wisconsin. The not so young editors and chefs at Taste of Home magazine also deserve a round of applause for bringing them to our attention. I clipped this recipe from their Kids in the Kitchen feature last year. I had a young assistant today and thought this would be a great way to spend part of the day. The cookies are really easy to do and with a little planning kids over eight can make these by themselves. Younger children will need some help. If you have perfectionist tendencies you can't hold in check, have someone else supervise. These are messy to assemble and when they're done by kids chances are there going to look like it. This is supposed to be fun, not an audition for the Martha Stewart show. Make sure you have an extra bag of candy on hand. It mysteriously seems to disappear when the cookies are being assembled. My four year old assistant was responsible for turning the cookies upside down, removing wrappers from the peanut butter cups and centering them once the icing was in place. I had to make one ingredient substitution. I was unable to find mini Chicklets, so I used orange breath mints instead. We were a quite a team and I think we did ourselves proud. Here's how we did it.

Pilgrim Hat Cookies ...from Megan and Mitchell Vogel and Taste of Home Magazine

Ingredients:
1 cup vanilla frosting
7 drops yellow food coloring
32 miniature peanut butter cups
1 package (11-1/2-oz.) fudge-striped cookies
32 pieces orange mini Chicklets gum

Directions:
1) Combine frosting and food coloring in a small shallow bowl. Remove paper liners from peanut butter cups.
2) for each cookie, dip the wide part of the peanut butter cup in frosting. Position over center hole of cookie to form a hatband and crown. Add a buckle of Chicklets gum. Yield: 32 cookies.

Cook's Note: Rather than dip the peanut butter cups in frosting, I created a circle of frosting in the center of the cookies. My young assistant then pressed the peanut butter cups in place.