Cinco de Mayo Sombrero Cookies

Well Cinco de Mayo was yesterday of course, but as fate would have it, my youngest daughter's preschool is doing a few weeks of studying other countries and cultures, and on Tuesday they are "flying" to Mexico .  We are in charge of snack and so I went searching for something we could bring.  I came across the cutest sombrero hat cookies that I knew we would have a blast making them.

Ole'!  Some very festive sombrero cookies.

I got the idea from Kelli over at the Random thoughts of a supermom blog and added a few minor adjustments of my own.  First, gather the things you will need:

Flat round cookies
Container of frosting
Nonpareils or sprinkles
gumdrops (I choose the larger ones)

This one is so easy the kids can help make these!

So in the original post they used store bought sugar cookies.  Since the preschoolers are "visiting" Mexico I thought it would be better to use cookies from Mexico. You can find this box of Serenatas in the Mexican food aisle of the grocery store (we found these at Walmart).  They are large, flat, and very tasty!  The first thing you want to do is scoop some frosting into a zip lock bag  (We are going to create a make-shift piping bag).

You can also use a regular piping bag.

Once you get a bunch of frosting down in the bag.  Squeeze the top together and cut off a small tip in one corner of the bag.

Next pipe a circle of frosting around the edge of the cookie.  It doesn't have to be perfect.

This will get covered with sprinkles

Next, quickly turn the cookie upside down into a shallow plate of spinkles

It feels wrong to dump the cookie in like this at first

Tap it around a bit and make sure the sprinkles are sticking to the line of frosting.  Next pipe a blob of frosting in the center of the cookie.

Gently place a large gumdrop in the center of the blob, pushing down gently so a ring of frosting forms around it.  In the original instructions, they used a very tiny gumdrop, and I thought the proportions looked better with the bigger gumdrop for that "authentic" sombrero look.  By the way, it was hard to find gumdrops in May (are they an Easter thing or something?) But the best place I ending up finding them was in the Winco bulk items section.  They had both the small and large sizes.

Goody goody gumdrops!

Sprinkle a few extra nonpareils  around so they stick to the white ring at the base of the gumdrop.

We chose the gumdrops in the three shades of the Mexican flag: Red, White, and Green

Anyone else feel like playing the Chiapanecas song now? (The Mexican hand-clapping song)

Anyway, we just loved how they turned out and can't wait to bring them tomorrow to preschool.  We are thinking of serving them with some Mexican hot chocolate (hot chocolate with cinnamon in it for the small fry) along with some Spanish translations of simple words, and I think it will be a big hit!  

By the way, even though Cinco de Mayo is now over, these would make a cute and fun craft for the kids after school, or a clever dessert for any upcoming fiesta or taco feed you might have this summer.  Ole'!!