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Gone Fishing Sugar Cookies

Name: Gone Fishing Sugar Cookies
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 160 min
Ingredients: 1 cup butter flavor vegetable shortening (Crisco); 1 cup granulated sugar; 1 large egg (room temperature); 2 tablespoons milk; 1 tablespoon vanilla extract; 3 cups all-purpose flour; 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder; 1/4 teaspoon salt; Decorations: blue/teal food coloring (blue decorating sugar, white nonpareils); paper fish stencils

By Wendy Sondov · Published: Jun 9, 2015 · Modified: Jan 31, 2023 · This post may contain affiliate links · As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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Gone Fishing Sugar Cookies, swirls of aqua-blue water or fish swimming in sparkling blue seas, have eye-catching pizzazz and crunchy vanilla goodness. These colorful cookies are ready for summer time snacking.

Blue sugar cookies with a fish shape stenciled in the center.

Why you'll love this recipe

Meet the first set of decorated cookies in my Summer 2015 Monday Box Challenge: sugar cookies that melt in your mouth, not in the mail. This summer, I will share a variety of easy, heat resistant ways to decorate my favorite desert-safe sugar cookies. No icing allowed.

These sugar cookies were designed for the Gone Fishing theme of Military Care Package #12. Both easy to make designs were sliced from logs of dough (no rolling out or cookie cutters needed).

Gone Fishing Sugar Cookies would be a special Father's Day treat for a fishing enthusiast dad!

These crunchy treats stay delicious for weeks. A couple of sugar cookies and a glass of milk are a wonderful way to cool down, relax, and imagine you have "gone fishing"!

Marbled blue sugar cookies in two shades of blue with nonpareils on the edges.

Care package contents and decorating

Care package contents: fish themed candy, crackers and drink mix, fish themed Dollar Store toys.

Most of the contents (other than the home baked items) and the box decorations for the military care packages I create, come from the dollar store. That is not because I am being frugal.

I shop at the dollar store because my care packages are intended as a quick, temporary respite from the realities of the dangerous jobs the troops are performing. The dollar store items will hopefully be used, enjoyed, and then thrown away.

The troops don't need sturdy, long lasting Nerf balls or Rubix cubes. There is no room for those things in duffle bags.

This box is filled with "fishy" goodies like Swedish Fish, gummy worms and sharks, Goldfish crackers, a plastic fishing rod game, and decorative blow-up fish and under the sea wall mural.

Some fishing snacks of lemonade powder and jerky found their way into the box as well.

Filled Fishing Care Package with box flaps decorated with blue paper and fish stickers.

I lined the box with blue wrapping paper then let my inner "sticker queen" loose with puffy and glittery sticker fish. I used blue celophane (instead of tissue paper) as filler, giving a "watery" look

Though my photos don't show this, I always tape an address label, with my soldiers full name, on an inside flap of the box, just in case something happens to the outer label.

Gone Fishing Sugar Cookies covered in blue sugar with a fish shape stencil on top.

For hot weather shipping, sugar cookies offer 2 challenges. First, the recipe itself has to be desert-safe.

Most of the year, I use a sugar cookie recipe that uses butter. For hot weather, I switch to this recipe which uses vegetable shortening (Crisco). If your cookies won't be hanging out in extreme heat, these decorating ideas will, of course, work on butter based cookies also.

The second challenge is decorating. Icing of any kind will melt, plain and simple. As crazy hot as it can get inside a military mail delivery vehicle, even decorative sugar might melt, but I am going to try.

Using one batch of cookie dough ( ½ of the dough was used for each design), I made 24 smaller ( 2 inch) cookies and 12 larger (3 inch) cookies.

Sliced log of blue sugar cookie dough coated in white nonpareil sprinkles.

For the swirling water cookies, the dough is divided in half.
Add a few drops of food coloring gel to color each half a different shade of blue. I used Americolor electric blue and teal. Roll each colored dough into a log about 6-8 inches long (this is very inexact and free form).
Twine the two logs together and use your hands to smoosh the two colors together a few times. Then roll the log to a diameter of about 2 inches.
Roll the log in white nonpareils to resemble the white foam on waves.
Wrap the dough log in plastic wrap and freeze or refrigerate several hours or overnight, until firm. When firm, cut into ⅜" slices and bake.

Log of sugar cookie dough coated in blue decorating sugar.

Stenciling instructions: fish stencil on cookie, coat with blue sugar, remove fish stencil with toothpick.

Decorating instructions: cookie with stencil removed, add sprinkle pearls for fish mouth and eye.

For the fish cookies, roll the dough into a 3" diameter log, then roll the log in blue decorating sugar.
Wrap the dough log in plastic wrap and freeze or refrigerate until firm. When firm, cut into ⅜" slices.
To decorate with fish, place a paper fish stencil on the cut side of the cookie. (I printed out 1 ½" fish from online clipart.) Sprinkle the cookie with blue decorating sugar. Brush any sugar off the stencil and use finger tips to gently press remaining sugar into the dough.
Use a toothpick to help remove the stencil from the dough. Press colored nonpareil sprinkles onto the fish for an eye and mouth.

Fudge Brownies decorated with candies to look like fish.

Decorated Fudge Brownies are the obvious addition to this Gone Fishing care package. These brownies deliver chewy, fudgy deliciousness where ever they go!

Green Eggs and Ham Slice and Bake Cookies are a fun sugar cookie for a Dr. Seuss theme.

These Slice and Bake Sprinkle Cookies are festive for any theme or occasion. Keep a frozen dough log handy for cookie emergencies.

Turmeric Cookies are slice and bake cookies with citrus flavor and a bright yellow hue.

Peach Tea Cookies are buttery, crunchy, and bursting with peach flavor! These cookies taste like a summer picnic.

Gone Fishing Sugar Cookies with fish stencils or marbled.

You can read more about desert safe ingredients and find an index of all of the desert safe recipes on The Monday Box by clicking here.

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