Ingredients:
1/3 lb butter (at room temperature)
2 eggs (at room temperature)
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 1/3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
3-4 tablespoons colored sprinkles (I used Betty Crocker Hollyberry)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease and flour one 8×8 pan.

In a medium-sized bowl whisk together the dry ingredients. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and combine thoroughly. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the sweetened butter and mix until a very thick dough forms. Fold in the sprinkles, distributing them evenly.

Press the dough into the prepared pan in an even layer, taking care to touch all sides of the pan.

Bake 30 minutes or until the edges are golden brown and only 1-2 crumbs come out on a toothpick inserted in the middle of the pan.

Cool completely in the pan on a wire rack. Cut into 24 squares.

Note: can be doubled to make 2 8×8 inch pans.

Tip: Since this recipe uses a full stick of butter (and a little extra), I used the the butter left on old butter wrapper to grease the pan (just rub the paper butter-side in the pan) and then my dusting wand to flour it. No mess, no waste, no greasy hands! See!

My thoughts:

For this recipe, I tweaked my family’s sugar cookie recipe to make sugar cookie squares.  I love making sugar cookies but I don’t have the real estate in my fridge for a huge batch of cookie dough right now and I am sure my mom is making some this week. So for a little treat to tide us over, I thought I’d make these bar cookies. So much easier and quicker than traditional rolled out sugar cookies but with all of the flavor.They are softer than the regular sugar cookies I’ve made in the past due to the thickness but have a lovely, slightly chewy texture vs a brittle snap.

I picked up some of the classic (well, I remember seeing it in the stores at in the ’80s as a small child so that is classic enough for me) Betty Crocker Hollyberry Sprinkles at Aldi on my last shop. These are the long green sprinkles with red ball sprinkles and come in a round plastic tub (I found similar ones on Amazon if you can’t find them in the store), not the Betty Crocker shaped holly berries and leaves decorating decors. You want to use actual sprinkles (i.e. jimmies) not deco pieces for the best results. Any colored sprinkles would work, of course, I just used the holly berry ones because it is near Christmas and they look festive.