My Fantasy Footballs

That hubster of mine is one of those fantasy football players. He's the Bud Light Real Men of Genius Fantasy Football Manager Guy.


I'm so proud.


Anyway, Albert and his other really tough & brawny fantasy football buddies got together last Saturday night to spend 4 hours sitting on their asses bidding on players for their fake football teams. It's what they like to call The Draft. Sounds fun, really.

The Draft is a huge event that Albert starts planning a year in advance so I wanted to contribute this year so I decided to make some football shaped sugar cookies. Score points for me on my Bree Van De Kamp journey!

I have been looking for the best sugar cookie recipe, the kind that are nice and soft and the kind that DO NOT have that gross lemon flavor to them. Well, I found it. These things are deadly; you will eat the whole batch if you're not careful. This is the best sugar cookie recipe I have found and lucky for you, I'm here to share it!

(Warning, my footballs turned out horrid and ugly but they tasted delicious! I suck at footballs. And life.)



First thing you do is pick out your baking music, I have kept a selection of goodies here for you to choose from. For this occasion, I chose The Black Eyed Peas - The E.N.D. Great CD!









Second, you will need to get out all this crap:

In a large bowl, cream together shortening, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.

Like dis:

Next, add the dry ingredients. I like to mix the dry ingredients together first in a separate bowl so all the salt and soda get to know the flour first. Or whatever.



Then I add those dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix.




The dough should look like dis:




Now add the sour cream (Oooooh, secret ingredient!!!)




Stir the dough until is starts pulling away from the sides of the bowl like dis:




Cover and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.


On a floured surface, roll out dough to about 1/8 inch thickness. You can make them a little thicker if you like bigger cookies.




Use desired cookie cutter, mine of course was a football.



Place cookies on an ungreased baking sheet and bake in a 375 degree oven for 8 minutes.



Now this is the important part because you don't want to over cook them. When you pull them from the oven they will not quite look done. THIS IS OKAY, do not leave them in the oven any longer than 8 minutes. They should look like dis:




Cool cookies completely before frosting.



Okay now I also found this great frosting recipe, you can either use this or just buy some cream cheese frosting already made. Whichever you prefer.

To make good frosting, you've GOT to cream the butter first.




And then add the remaining ingredients, milk, powdered sugar & vanilla. Just check out this frosting, it's so yummy!




Now here is where I began my downfall. I needed to turn this white frosting into brown frosting for my footballs. Seems easy enough right? Just add red and green food coloring and you'll get brown right? Easy.




Well, not so much. I used the rest of my red and green food coloring and this is as brown as it got:




Not quite what I was going for but I was determined NOT to use chocolate frosting on these cookies so I had to make do. And here is where they turn really ugly, frosting the cookies.




Yes I am aware it looks like puke or poop, but I promise they taste delicious! When frosting these things you really want to use a bit more frosting then usual. Trust me, there's no such thing as too much frosting on a sugar cookie the last thing you want is for them to be dry.

Then I had to add my 3 little white stripy things to make them look like footballs. I can't even do that right. Straight lines? Not possible with my shaky hands. So here is the final result:






Not the prettiest things but they were so fricken delicious; I think I ate a dozen by myself. So be careful!

And here are both recipes written out in full for you to copy:


The Best Sugar Cookie Recipe Ever

1 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
½ tsp. vanilla
3 cups flour
½ tsp. soda
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp baking powder
½ cup sour cream (you can use yogurt or buttermilk also)


Cream shortening, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and sour cream. Mix well. Cover bowl and chill dough at least 30 minutes. On floured surface, roll out to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes. Place on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 8 minutes. Do not over bake!

Makes 4-5 dozen



Sugar Cookie Frosting:

4 cups confectioners' sugar
½ cup shortening (or butter)
5 tablespoons milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
food coloring

In a large bowl, cream shortening until smooth. Add the confectioners' sugar and mix again until smooth. Gradually mix in the milk and vanilla with an electric mixer until smooth and stiff, about 5 minutes. Color with food coloring if desired.


Don't forget your aprons! I was sporting this one:



With nothing underneath of course.