Tag: cookies

Posted on

Kitchen Adventures – Cat Cookie Edition

My friend, S, gave me a set of cat-shaped cookie cutters for Christmas.  When giving them to me, she mentioned that she had seen something on Instagram about tie-dyed cookie decorating and thought that we could make tie-dyed cat cookies.

Well, you can’t just hang a statement like that out there.  I made her pick a date and commit to coming over for cat cookie making.

Now, I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I am not much of a cookie decorating kind of gal. I’m okay with the baking part, but I just don’t have whatever it is that you need to rock at cookie decorating (I’m pretty sure that whatever is a bunch of special equipment). However, I am also good at not letting being bad at something ruin my fun. So, I was not about to let an opportunity to play cat cookie bakers with my friend pass me by.

I made the cookie dough the day before. It never hurts to have well-rested overnight in the refrigerator cookie dough to work with.

I love Nigella Lawson’s Butter Cut-Out Cookies recipe from the How to be a Domestic Goddess cookbook. Whatever they wind up looking like, the cookies are just sweet-enough, just buttery-enough, just dry-enough, and a little salty. I like to substitute almond extract for the vanilla, but other than that, I wouldn’t change a thing.

I waited for S to come over to start baking because I find that whole rolling out dough, cookie cutter, transfer to the baking sheet business to be very tedious.  I was so glad that I did because it was almost fun since I had another person there to talk to.

Once we managed to get all the cookies baked, we threw that round of dishes in the sink and rested up with some snacks while the cookies cooled.  Once we were sufficiently snacked and rested, it was time for adventures in tie-dye cookie icing.

We made up a big bowlful of icing (aka wet powdered sugar) and then divided it into bowls.  S was in charge of the food coloring and she did a great job.  We had tangerine sunset, teal, and raspberry sherbet, to play with.

According to the YouTube video she had watched, you start with a base of white icing, drizzle the colors on top, rake through it with a toothpick, then plop the cookie, twisting as you lift.

Our results were somewhat lackluster.

We experimented with all sorts of things. It was all a mess. Finally, we decided to go for the drizzle technique.  First everyone on the tray got a white icing base coat. Then S drizzled tangerine sunset in one direction to make stripes.  I followed up with raspberry sherbet in another direction.  We decided to leave well-enough alone and not use the teal.

The end result was sort of a pseudo-preppy, abstract madras. More importantly we were done. Most importantly we came away with a newfound appreciation for those $7 sugar cookies you see in the bakery and without any delusions of wanting to go into the cookie decorating business.

Posted on

No-Bake Cookie Adventures

When I was visiting my friend in Arizona we wound up in Flagstaff for lunch.  The place that we went had a big assortment of yummy, vegan sweets and K stocked up.  Her favorite of the assortment was a no-bake, vegan, peanut butter cookie.  She found a recipe online for a three-ingredient version that we decided that we had to try out.

Three Ingredient, No-Bake, Vegan Cookies

  • 1 cup creamy peanut butter (recipe calls for natural, unsalted)
  • ½ cup maple syrup
  • 2 cups rolled oats

Combine the peanut butter and maple syrup in a bowl.  Microwave in 20 second increments, whisk in-between until it is well combined.  Continue to microwave in 20 second increments until the mixture begins to dry out (4-7 times). Add the oats, form into cookies, freeze to harden.

For an added peanut butter cookie touch, we used a fork to flatten the cookies (cute right?).

I love how simple these cookies were to make.  I love that you didn’t even need the stove, you just use the microwave to do your “cooking.”  They were pretty yummy, but I do think the “dough” tasted better when it was warm.  If you are vegan and you are looking for something for your sweet tooth, this might be a good option for you.

I was interested to know what other no-bake vegan cookie recipes might entail, so I did a little googling and found this!

Peanut Butter-Chocolate No Bake Cookies

This is a chocolate/peanut butter cookie (click header for link).  It has coco powder, so you still get the gluten free thing, but you get a little bit of the body that you would get from a cookie that has flour in it.  You also use a little bit of coconut oil and some solid chocolate, which both add a bit of fat and I would think create a creamier texture.

I found about four variations on this same recipe, some used sugar instead of maple syrup, and one used coconut milk instead of almond (or other non-dairy milk).  I can see myself trying this out in some form.

No-Bake, Not-Vegan Cookies?

So, then I started to wonder (as one would) what a non-vegan no-bake cookie would entail.  Spoilers:  the recipes that I found were pretty much the same as the vegan cookies but included some form of milk and/or butter.  So whatever kind of milk you decide to use (or skip) and whatever kind of fat would be the variables between a vegan and a non-vegan cookie.  But all the no-bake cookie recipes that I looked at omitted eggs and flour (no surprise there!).

Since it’s starting to warm up, this may be a fun area of sweets-making to explore without having to turn on the oven (when it isn’t an ice cream experiment day at least).

Has anyone else tried any no-bake vegan baking?  Do you have a favorite recipe or trick?