Indian Tribes of Alabama Cookie Project

November is National American Indian Heritage Month, a time for studying Alabama’s native people. Our Indian Tribes of Alabama Cookie project is a special sweet treat that can be served up at your classrooms' Thanksgiving celebration and a fun way to learn about the state’s historic Indian tribes.

Materials

Two tubes of store-bought sugar cookie dough

11” x 17” cookie sheet

11” x 17” diagram of Alabama

Toothpicks

Non-stick spray

Parchment paper

Rolling pin

Store-bought icing

Red, yellow, and blue food coloring

Project Instructions

Presenting a large cookie in the shape of Alabama to your students will gain their attention. Some will wonder why a giant cookie in the shape of their home state is in the classroom. All will wonder when they will be eating the cookie. “In due time,” you say, “but first we have to add lots of icing according to my instructions.”  

After your class has calmed down, explain that long before early settlers from other colonies and Europe came to Alabama, several tribes of Native Americans lived here. Those tribes were the Chickasaw, Koasati, Cherokee, Alabama, Choctaw, Muskogee Creek, and the Biloxi. Tell your students that they will ice the cookie with different colors, each corresponding to where one of Alabama’s seven tribes lived. Refer to the map, available for download and printing out on 11” x 17” paper [link].  

Use a toothpick to poke through the 11” x 17” diagram onto the cookie to score an outline of the different tribes. You will need seven different colors of icing – red, yellow, blue, purple, green, orange, and brown. Mixing up purple, green, and orange icing with is a fun way to reinforce primary and secondary colors. Use leftover icing to make brown for your seventh tribe.  

Pack the icing in baggies and snip a quarter inch opening off of one corner. Lay down a neat outline of icing along the scoring. Even younger students can use a butter or pastry knife to color in with the remaining icing. Cleanliness counts; we recommend smocks and disposable plastic gloves, which you can pinch from the school lunchroom.  

Take a picture of your edible map to share with Vulcan Park and Museum. Devour. A pizza roller is a handy utensil for divvying up portions.

 

Making the Alabama-shaped cookie

Making a cookie large enough for a classroom to ice and eat can be a daunting task. We have made it easy for you. The trick is the store-bought cookie dough – and some savvy timing.  

Cut off the ends of two tubes of sugar cookie dough and remove the remaining plastic. Pack the dough into a greased 11” x 17” cookie sheet with your fingers, and then roll it out until smooth. (Alabama is shaped and proportioned very much like a standard cookie sheet, is it not?) Line with parchment paper if you plan to remove the cookie from the pan. The raw dough should be about 3/8 of an inch thick and fill the cookie sheet entirely.  

Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit until brown on the edges and lightly brown all over – about 15 minutes. Rotate the cookie sheet midway to ensure even browning.

Let the cookie cool before trimming into shape. Use the stencil we have provided and a butter knife to cut away everything that does not look like Alabama. You will undoubtedly discover that the best way to dispose of the cookie trimmings is to eat them. If you mess up and loose a peninsula or two, reattach with icing of the appropriate color. No one needs to know.

                                                 View this project on Flickr!