Tie-Dye Fall Leaf Cookies

Do you ever think of something and then wonder – what took me so long to dream that up? That’s how I feel about these tie-dye fall leaf cookies. When I was home visiting my parents, I was telling my mom about my Rainbow Poptarts and how I wished I could make rainbow treats all of the time. As I was looking out their back window at the beautiful mountainside changing colors for the fall, I thought – what about fall leaf colors?! And thus – a star was born. Though after a quick glance at Pinterest it appears people have been doing this for awhile. HA! Oh well – these tie-dye fall leaf cookies are fun and actually pretty fail-proof. I hope you enjoy making them as much as we did!

Tie-Dye Fall Leaf Cookies

My mom’s sugar cookie recipe is one for the books, so we used that as our base. Once that was mixed up, we divided it up into 4 balls and used yellow, orange, red and green food gels to dye the dough. I swear by these food gels for all my food dying needs – they work really well and a little goes a long way!

For these Tie-Dye Fall Leaf Cookies, you will need:

3/4 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

2 1/2 cups Cup4Cup

1 tsp. baking powder

food coloring gels

1. Mix together shortening, sugar, eggs and vanilla.

2. In a separate bowl, mix together flour and baking powder.

3. Sift dry mixture into wet mixture.

4. Divide dough into four equal parts and dye one part red, one part green, one part yellow and one part orange.

5. Chill for 1 hour prior to using.

After you have your dough chilled, place it on a well-floured baking mat (this one is my favorite). I took each ball and rolled them into long logs and twisted them together before rolling them out. There’s really no wrong way to make these cookies, because the colors, even once fully mixed and brown-ish, are all very fall-like. You can’t mess this up! Once your dough is entirely rolled out, use a leaf cookie cutter to cut out the individual cookies and add a few pinches of edible glitter to dress them up.

Fall Cookie Recipe

Bake the cookies at 400 degrees for 6-8 minutes or until slightly browned. You don’t bake these cookies very long at all, so make sure you’re checking to make certain they aren’t burning (which is pretty easy to do!). I love baking these cookies (and loads of other goodies) on silicone baking sheets to keep the cookies the same temperature all the way through. No brown edges and melty insides! These baking sheets are a total MUST for any holiday baking.