I can’t help it. I just can’t hide my V-Day love! I mean it’s a holiday where you celebrate all of the people you’re blessed with in your life. It’s about romance and friendship, chocolate and sweet cards. Don’t be silly; climb aboard the Valentine’s train.
One of the ways [there were many] we celebrated this Valentine’s day was making roll out sugar cookies. I was a little nervous because making low-sugar [by choice] gluten-free, vegan [not by choice] roll out cookies is … challenging. We made some for Christmas and they were an epic fail. You know cookies are bad when sweet-treat starved children won’t eat them. Imagine dousing a cracker in apple cider vinegar [shudder].
So this time we tried a new recipe and it was good enough to share. Though I have to say: if you don’t need a gluten-free vegan treat, I’m including the pre-food allergies recipe we adored because if you don’t have to make these g-f/v then I wouldn’t recommend it [if you know what I mean...].
We made these cookies at 7 a.m. Some people are still sleeping; we’re making cookies.
The recipe called for sifted flour but my sifter is broken [and really, who's got time for that. :)] so thankfully my kitchen helper really enjoys stirring things and aerated that flour like a champ.
[so... when do I get to eat something?]
Roll-Out Sugar Cookies
adapted from YumUniverse
Makes about 9-10 cookies
1/4 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup oat flour
1 teaspoon arrowroot
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons [packed] coconut oil
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon apple juice
Preheat oven to 350F. Whisk dry ingredients together. Cream together the vanilla with the coconut oil, making sure to leave no clumps. Add the coconut oil to the flours and blend. It’s a really dry dough. Add enough apple juice until you can work it into a ball with your hands. Roll out the dough between two pieces of parchment and cut with cookie cutters. [I rolled them quite thin and they still baked up nice]. We cooked our cookies on the parchment we rolled it out with on our pizza stone that was pre-heated in the oven. Bake for 6-8 minutes. You’re looking for the cookies to bounce back a little if you press on them with your finger; if they’re not ready you’ll just leave a dent. You don’t want to over-bake these. You want them to be a little soft.
To make our icing we decided to do something strawberry flavored. To make it we heated up some strawberries [maybe like 4 large strawberries, peeled and quartered] and then pushed it through a sieve until we had a liquid. We then added it to our favorite buttercream recipe, courtesy of my Kitchen-aid stand mixer’s recipe book.
Buttercream
[half-batch]
6 tablespoons butter, softened [We used Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks for Lu.]
1 cup powdered sugar
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
Cream the butter. Add the sugar and vanilla and beat until creamy.
My kitchen helper did a great job decorating a cookie and then declared it “hard work” and asked Mama to finish up.
We then set up a Valentine’s day inspired table and had an indoor picnic while little brother was taking a nap. We read our favorite Valentine’s books [Dora's Valentine's Adventure and Clifford's First Valentine's Day]. Now every time we sit down at the dining room table it’s a picnic. After the picnic, we played with some construction paper to make a heart garland and some special Lucy “origami”.
[I made this for my brudder.]
She likes to hold things up while I take a picture and then say, “Let me seeeeeee!”.
So if you’re not battling multiple food allergies, here’s the conventional sugar cookie recipe we used to use.
Rolled Sugar Cookies
Makes… a lot
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour. Preheat your oven to 400F. Roll out the dough to 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Use your cookie cutters. Place the cookies on your cookie sheet and bake 6-8 minutes.
I love how she “gives up.” It’s cute… for now.
I know. I keep thinking the same thing.