Just took my first batch of sugar cookies out of the oven; they're cooling off so I can frost 'em. Snowmen, of course! <
Frosty the Snowman, anyone?>
This is the first batch of homemade Christmas sugar cookies I've had since my mom got cancer, so I'm both happy and teary.
Paleo, so based off of this recipe:
https://againstallgrain.com/2013/02/07/grain-free-sugar-cookies-paleo-and-scd/While making the dough, I tasted (OF COURSE!) It needed a little something extra, so I added a half teaspoon of almond extract. Perfect!
Next batch I'll add the green spinach-extract dye and make a dozen Christmas trees. I already made up some red maple sugar using beet-extract dye. I tasted the dyes, and there's little or no trace of their origin; the combination of vanilla and almond extracts in the cookies will completely mask what little remains.
The frosting still needs *something*, but I'm not sure what. It's got a noticeable taste of the cacao butter used as the primary ingredient. Maybe a hit of maple syrup to replace some of the honey next time... I think that'd complement the cacao butter well.
edit: here's the best source of info I'd found on DIY organic food coloring (no petroleum):
https://nourishingjoy.com/homemade-natural-food-dyes/Damn. When I started looking how to make food dye a few days ago, I got a WHOLE new level of disgust for commercialized foods. How the hell could I have
eaten that crap before?? Well, rightfully, for the last 30+ years, if I saw artificial ANYTHING in the ingredients, it went back on the shelf and I didn't buy it. Most of the foods that had added "natural flavors" also went back on the shelf, as that phrase could mean anything. I've been a hard-core label reader for over half my life, only eating foods that had ingredients that my grandmother would have recognized. Grandma wasn't an inorganic chemist. Hell, she wasn't an organic chemist, either!
Sprouts had
teensy-tiny little one-use packets of organic food dye for some outrageous price, so I did it at home based on the instructions above and made enough for the next freaking YEAR. I already had the beets and spinach in the fridge.
Yep, I already ate a couple of 'em. Cook's perogative!
Oops... I misspoke. I did gingerbread men cut-outs 'cos the cookie cutter looked like it'd be easier for my FIRST try at making cookies in 40+ years. I don't have hardly ANY of the tools that mom had. No pastry bag, no small offset spatulas for frosting (I used the back of a spoon), etc. I had to use a sheet of parchment paper for a pastry mat 'cos I don't have the soft old canvas mat that mom had (my sister got most of that stuff). Improvise, adapt, and move on. I'll buy a couple of quarter-inch dowels to make it easier to get the dough to the right thickness with the rolling pin, as some were thick, and some a little thin. That's hard to eyeball between 2 sheets of parchment paper.