Hi friends,

For those who celebrate, I hope you had an amazing Christmas weekend filled with spending time with loved ones and/or doing what you love (perhaps that included some quilting or stitching). Maybe the holidays included eating a few too many sweets and cookies? Speaking of cookies, I want to share my latest quilting adventure: turning sugar cookie dough into edible quilt blocks.

I have to give a huge shoutout to the amazing Lauren Dozier (@lauren_dozier), who served as my inspiration for this delicious endeavor. Lauren’s beautiful quilt cookies on her Instagram feed caught my eye earlier this month, and I couldn’t resist the urge to try it out for myself. 

Here’s the scoop on how I transformed my favorite sugar cookie recipe into these delightful quilt-inspired treats. It was a bit of a process, but the results are well worth it!

INGREDIENTS + SUPPLIES:
• your favorite sugar cookie recipe + baking supplies
• pizza cutter
• acrylic ruler you don’t mind getting dough on (it does wash off!)
• quilt block inspiration
• a little bit of patience

STEPS:
1. Prepare the Dough

I kicked off this baking project with my go-to sugar cookie recipe. Once the dough was ready, I divided it into quarters.

2. Coloring the Dough

I get a bit freaked out about food dye, so I used Watkins Food Coloring, a food coloring free from artificial colors and made by vegetable juice and spices. The downside of using natural food colorings is that the color is a bit unpredictable. The colors typically shift while baking. You do have less control over the color, but the upside is I feel like it’s safe to eat and the color is fun and surprising!

I set aside one quarter of my cookie dough as is, and for the remaining three quarters, I added natural food coloring one at a time. A light green turned more mustard, a light blue turned a tad greenish, and a red berry transformed into a delightful shade of purple.

3. Roll, Cut, Repeat

With my colored dough ready, I rolled each quarter into a ball and let it chill for a bit. Once the dough had firmed up, I rolled it out, about a 1/4″ thick, and cut it into 1″ strips using a pizza cutter (my rotary cutter for bakery) and one of my trusty acrylic rulers. It was a similar process as cutting fabric for a quilt! I did use a bit of non-stick spray on the bottom of my acrylic ruler so that it wouldn’t stick to my dough.

4. Chill and Cut Again

After cutting the strips, I chilled them a bit to prevent them from getting too soft. Once firm again, I cut the strips into 1″ squares and then subcut some into triangles, just like cutting pieces for quilt blocks.

5. Assembling “Quilt Blocks”

Now for the fun part! I arranged the squares and triangles to form my edible quilt blocks. If the shapes got too soft, into the freezer they went to firm up. I discovered that gently squishing (being careful not to change the square and triangle shapes) the pieces together made them adhere well while baking.

While I was assembling the cookie quilt blocks, I noticed the shapes were getting a bit too soft to work with and they weren’t looking like crisp squares and triangles. A quick trip to the freezer firmed them up again and fixed this issue.

6. Bake to Perfection

Into the oven the quilt cookies went, and voilà—my edible quilt blocks were complete! I baked them according to the timing of the dough recipe. The colors may have shifted a bit (you can see some of the raw dough in the photo above next to the baked cookies), but the charm of imperfection made them all the more delightful.

You know you’re a quilter when…

your idea of a festive holiday activity involves turning cookies into quilt blocks!

This was a super fun project—making edible quilt blocks right in my kitchen! And the best part? They were a big hit with my friends who enjoyed them on Christmas Day. I can’t wait to make more quilt block cookies again in the future. I hope you were inspired to give it a try..

Wishing you all a quilty and delightful holiday season! 

Until next time,
Sheri