i baked!

i made cookies! and they turned out! i still have lots of stuff that i'm behind on updating with (needlework, pewter, the ruffler foot, dyed trees, etc!), but i'm super excited about these!


i should say that i'm not much of a cook. i regularly refer to recipes as "patterns", i can never remember how much of the shortening stick is half a cup, and i'm incredibly impatient while things are cooking. i have a few "specialties", and that's it.

but i really wanted to make sugar cookies, and since the games day i went to today was mostly vegans and vegetarians, i decided to try making vegan sugar cookies. i found this recipe through google, and it worked fabulously!



the recipe says it will make 36 cookies, so i made a double batch. i separated the dough into two logs for refrigerating, and only ended up using one log. one log made over 60 cookies! i definitely rolled them a bit thin, so that was part of it, but still! and the icing says it will coat 24 cookies, but i made one batch and coated about 35 cookies before i decided i was bored with it, and left the rest un-iced. there was definitely enough icing left for more though. the overall recipe is awesome, but will probably make more than you expect.


i love how the icing looks! it coats the cookie perfectly. the sprinkles are vegan too.

the cookies ended up about 80% organic (total guesstimate there, by the way!). i used earth balance buttery sticks, organic sugar by wholesome sweeteners, ener-G egg replacements, choices bulk organic flour, non-organic baking powder, non-organic vanilla, and tofutti cream cheese for the cookies. for the icing, i used icing sugar by wholesome sweeteners (their sugar is all vegan, fyi), so good original instead of the silk vanilla, because i hate the vanilla soy, so i never have it, non-organic corn syrup, non-organic almond extract, and organic/vegan sprinkelz sprinkles on top. basically, i used non-organic for things that i only needed a little bit of, i didn't want to buy all new vanilla and almond extracts or baking powder, and i refused to pay $10 for 4 teaspoons of corn syrup. i had to supplement the flour with non-organic as well, because i ran out!

i thought the corn syrup flavour was a bit strong in the icing, probably because i didn't use light (couldn't find it, except in the $10 organic kind), and because i used the plain soy milk. however, i didn't hear anyone else complain, and one person actually complimented the almond flavour, which i thought was totally overpowered by the corn syrup!

they were pretty much a hit, and by the time i left the games day, they were all gone. my dad ate about 6 of them before i told him that they were vegan, at which point he was all grossed out.... but by the time i got home, he was wanting to know where the un-iced leftovers were! they were quite pricey, but i live in the suburbs, and organic foods (real organic foods, not the "slap-a-label-on-it-and-call-it-organic" foods) are in limited supply and expensive. if i'd had time to go into vancouver, they would have been a lot less.