pot of gold

St. Patrick's day is tomorrow. Not something we celebrate here, as we're French, English and Finnish, but not Irish, but hey, any reason is a good reason to make food!

I really wanted to make a cool St. Patrick's treat. I had in mind to make a Guinness cupcake (pot), with some kind of gold frosting (gold), white cotton candy on top of that (clouds), a sugar cookie shaped like a rainbow and decorated like one perched on top of that. But I ran out of steam. St. Patrick's Day comes every year. There's always next year :)

Plus St. Patrick's Day is always during our March break. After a weekend where everyone got sick, and nothing got done, it's insanely busy. We went to the museum on Monday, special art playgroup yesterday. I had to beg off going to Beach playgroup today so I could get stuff done! I don't know how my babysitter does it! She does something with the kids every. single. day! When I came home for lunch yesterday, I was totally exhausted, but hey, normal day for her. And she's twice my age! I want to have her energy when I get to her age! I have to keep some energy for either a clown show or a playdate this afternoon, camping playgroup tomorrow, another museum and a haircut on Friday (Cha cut her own hair again... this time, I need a pro to fix it! Thanks Nat!). I'm supposed to see my friend Mylène too somewhere in there! So much to do, so little time!

So I made gold coins. Or cheddar cracker coins. Basically, a homemade goldfish cracker. Really easy to pull together, and only the food processor to wash afterwards! Sounds good to me :) The dough was really nice. I tried rolling it between parchment paper like the recipe says, but I found it was easier to roll the dough directly on parch paper. 3/8 inch was pretty thick too, so most of mine are thinner than that. You could cut your crackers any shape you want. I actually had to go through Cha's playdough toys to find a round shape cutter of the right size... Thank goodness for children's toys!

I crowded two baking sheets with a total of 75 gold coins. It's a good thing they didn't spread out! Oh, and I have to admit that I added a bit of golden yellow gel coloring to the dough...

St. Patty’s day gold coins (Cheddar Crackers)
Recipe source: Laura Flowers @ The Cooking Photographer

1 1/3 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon onion powder
6 tablespoon unsalted butter, diced
8 ounce package shredded triple cheddar cheese, or cheddar of choice
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons water

1. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.

2. In a food processor pulse together the flour, salt, paprika and onion powder. Add the butter and process until combined. Add the cheddar and pulse until finely chopped. Process in the egg yolk and water until the mixture forms a ball.

3. Remove the dough and knead in your hands for a few turns. Divide in half and roll one part between two pieces of wax paper to 3/8 inch thick. Peel off the wax paper and stamp dough with cookie stamps or cut with cookie cutters. Place the crackers on cookie sheets.

4. Freeze the crackers on the cookie sheets for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Move the cookie sheets to the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Cool crackers on cooling racks. Store in an airtight container.

Enjoy with a cold Guinness, and Happy St. Patrick's Day!