I normally have my kids decorate any cut-out cookies for the holidays. It’s great fun, and I get to see their individual styles. But I also get to clean up the type of mess that makes the cookie decorating fun disappear: the darn sugar sprinkles. And sometimes…after mixing, rolling, cutting, and baking the cookies, I just want to decorate without massive clean-up.

This year, I did just that. I mixed up some frosting in my hearty copper bowl (yes, you use copper bowls for most everything but vinegar stuff) and divided it out into smaller bowls and then went ahead and just picked some food coloring, added to each, and let the frosting colors be the decoration. The kids didn’t care as long as they got a cookie at the end.

The frosting recipe is actually pretty simple, but it’s been passed down to me from my mother-in-law, who had it from her beloved late mother. So, my kids are enjoying a frosting recipe from their great-grandmother, and now I’m sharing it here with you, too!

Muriel’s Frosting

3 Tbsp butter at room temperature

2 cups confectioner’s sugar

1 ½ tsp vanilla or almond flavoring

1 Tbsp milk (and slowly add 1 Tbsp more at a time until desired consistency)

Cream the butter with the vanilla before adding the confectioner’s sugar. Mix together and then add the milk bit by bit. For different frosting colors, divide the white frosting into multiple bowls and add food colorings of your choice to each bowl and frost away!

*Fresh tip – my mother always frosted cookies on the bottom to “lock in freshness”. I do it too. I have yet to do a science experiment proving this statement, but it kind of makes sense, logically!