Easter Nest Cookies

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I meant to post this recipe yesterday, but the Easter holiday ran away from me! Luckily, the nest-themed cookies work great for any point during the spring, as baby birds make their way into the world.

Prepare one package of vegan sugar cookie mix according to package directions and bake.

Immediately after the cookies come out of the oven, indent the centers with a spoon. Transfer to wire racks and cool completely.

Fill the centers of each cookie with frosting (any flavor will do!) and sprinkle with shredded coconut as the “twigs” of the nest.

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Finally, nestle in jelly beans or your favorite round vegan candies as “eggs.”

 

President’s Day Fun

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Happy President’s Day to all! We marked the occasion with some edible fun and a little magic trick thrown in for good measure.

First up, the trick. Grown-ups (or big kids), fold a bill of any denomination down the center of the president’s face. Now make two additional folds over the center of each eye (the folds will be close together, which is why grown-up hands worked better here).

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You should now have three accordion pleats. If you tilt the bill upwards, the president will appear to smile.

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Tilt it down, and he frowns!

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We tried this with Abe Lincoln and then Andrew Jackson on the $20.

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Who had a very pronounced frown:

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I would have used George Washington as well, except had no singles in my wallet. It was a great way to introduce the names of these men to Travis.

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We continued the fun with an edible presidential treat.

First, microwave a handful of chocolate chips in a glass bowl at 20 second intervals, until melted – it will take about 1 minute. Using a toothpick, paint smiles and eyes onto round cookies. Vegan vanilla wafers would work, but we like the lemon cookies from Back to Nature.

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For Abe, adhere mini chocolate chips using frosting as the “glue” to be his beard. Cut two pieces of dark chocolate to be his hat, and attach together with additional frosting.

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For George, cut mini Dandies marshmallows in half, and adhere around the top of his head with frosting, to be his wig. Add a collar at the neck, with a mini chocolate chip for a button.

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Our presidents were gobbled up in no time!

Olympic Medal Cookies

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On the heels of our Olympic crafting, we made edible medals to enjoy during the opening ceremony of the Games (and needed to taste test them today, of course).

The recipe is care of High Five magazine. It needed a few vegan tweaks (we don’t have the convenience of pre-made sugar cookie dough logs or colored frosting), but the tweaks were easy to make.

Start with a box of sugar cookie mix (try Cherrybrook Kitchen), and bake according to package directions. Travis loves being my helper when we pull out the stand mixer!

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Make sure the cookies are very round balls as you put them into the oven, so you have round medal-shaped cookies at the end. Let cool completely.

To prepare the filling, place 5 medium frozen strawberries (thawed) in a bowl and crush with a potato masher.

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Combine the strawberries in a food processor with 1/2 cup non-dairy cream cheese, 1 tablespoon powdered sugar, and 1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract. Process until smooth.

Spread the strawberry filling onto half of the cookies; set aside the remaining cookies.

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Carefully guiding your child’s hand with a butter knife or plastic knife, cut strips of fruit leather into two pieces. Arrange the pieces over the strawberry filled cookies like the tails of a ribbon. Top with an additional cookie.

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From this point, you can have fun with toppings any way you’d like. We decided we needed to frost our cookies in yellow for gold medals. I added yellow food coloring to a store-bought vanilla frosting (try Dollop) in a plastic bag and kneaded until golden. Cut a small hole in the corner of the bag and pipe onto the cookies.

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Topping the frosting with sprinkles was Travis’s favorite part, eating sprinkles along the way of course.

Olympics kick off on February 9 – what sport will you and your kiddos be watching the most?

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Kitchen Sink Cookies

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This recipe is exactly what the title says it is: a way to use up everything in your pantry except the kitchen sink! Never before have I found a recipe that so perfectly uses up all the bits and bobs of baking ingredients I have lying about. You can prepare the dough now, freeze it in four separate batches, and enjoy cookies for ages to come. The stir-ins below are just a template: add up to 2 cups of whatever you have on hand: shredded coconut, chopped nuts, baking chips, raisins. Anything, in sum, except the real kitchen sink.

Ingredients:

For the cookies:

  • Cooking spray
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1/2 cup melted Earth Balance butter
  • 1 and 1/2 cups brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 cup canola oil
  • 2 tablespoons Ener-G egg powder
  • 1 tbsp. vanilla
  • 4 cups rolled oats

For the stir-ins:

  • 3/4 cup shredded coconut
  • 3/4 cup mini non-dairy chocolate chips (such as Enjoy Life)
  1. Line a 13×9-in baking dish with parchment paper and coat the parchment with cooking spray; set aside.
  2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.
  3. In a second bowl, whisk together the butter, brown sugar, sugar, and canola oil.
  4. Separately, whisk the Ener-G egg powder with 5 tablespoons warm water until well combined. Add to the butter mixture, along with the vanilla.
  5. Add the oats, along with the stir-ins of your choice. Press the batter evenly into the prepared pan, and cut into quarters with a knife, cutting all the way down to the parchment. Lightly score each quarter into 12 squares, cutting only halfway into the dough. Freeze for 1 hour.
  6. Transfer each quarter of the dough to a zip-top plastic bag, and store in the freezer until ready to use.
  7. To bake the cookies, remove from the freezer and separate along the 12 squares. Bake at 350 degrees F for 16 minutes. The cookies will be soft coming out of the oven but will harden as they cool. Cool on a wire rack before serving.

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Patience is a Virtue

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Ah, the age-old question, how to teach patience to a preschooler when there is so much to do and see and explore. Because let’s be honest – waiting is hard! But to drive home the idea that patience and waiting are worth the wait, cookies are the perfect teaching tool. Yes, cookies! They only take about 20 minutes, which means you’ll have to wait, but not too long. Did Travis make it through our experiment? Read on and find out…

We picked a pumpkin cookie recipe because, well, it’s autumn. This recipe had the added bonus of only using three ingredients!

In a bowl, we mixed:

1 (13-ounce) package spice cake mix*

1 can pumpkin puree

1 cup non-dairy chocolate chips

Travis was a big helper with the stirring…

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…But immediately asked if he could taste both the pumpkin.

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Oh, and the chocolate chips. Hmm, was this good waiting? I decided that a little nibble wouldn’t hurt.

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We popped the cookies in the oven and baked at 350 degrees F for 18 minutes.

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The cookies are good warm, but even better the next morning for an a.m. snack after they had completely set and cooled. So see, patience is a virtue!

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*Be sure to check ingredient lists in any pre-made cake mix for items that are not vegan. The spice cake mix from Namaste Foods was perfect, but comes in a 26-ounce bag. Measure out about 2 and 1/2 cups mix to equal 13 ounces.