Festive Christmas Cookie Bars

One week left! Want a quick batch of "cookies"? Roll the dough into the pan, bake, frost and cut. Boom... cookies!

Ingredients:
4 1/2 - 5 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup butter, at room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 tsps almond extract
green food colouring
red food colouring

Frosting:
3 cups icing sugar
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
3 tbsps milk
1 tsp almond extract

Combine the flour, salt and baking soda and set aside.

In a large mixer bowl cream the butter and sugar together. Add eggs one at a time then the almond extract.  Add the flour mixture in 4 additions. This is a really big batch and just barely fit in the mixer. The dough kept creeping up the beater! At this point it's best to put the dough on the counter and blend the rest of the way by hand. But don't overwork the dough and end up with tough cookies!

Shape it so that you can divide it evenly in half then take one half at a time to colour.

Here's where things got tricky. The original recipe called for 6 drops of each colour, so starting with the green I added 6 drops. But it was still light green. The pictures in the original recipe showed vivid red and green layers. So I added more green...I was up to 18 drops and it was still mint green! Then I used some concentrated gel. I added blue and yellow because I didn't have any green. The colour came up considerably but still not what I expected. For the red I started immediately with the red "no taste" gel and after about 6 blobs of colour on a toothpick I gave up. 

Was I naive to expect brighter colours?!? If you have a trick for vivid colour please let me know in the comments section below.

Aaaaanyways.... back to this recipe. 
Line a 13 X 9" pan with parchment paper. Leave some overhang. Press one colour into the pan. Then to even it out roll with a small roller or what I used...my pestle.

Take pieces of the second colour and flatten by hand then lay them on top of the first layer. Gently roll the second layer.

Bake at 375 F for 25-30 minutes. Cool completely.

For the frosting cream the butter and icing sugar together then add the milk and almond extract. Spread over the top of the bars.

And if you like you can add sprinkles!

Chill in the fridge. Using the parchment overhang lift out of the pan, trim the uneven sides and cut into bars or squares.

Original recipe: https://www.dashofsanity.com/christmas-sugar-cookie-bars/