DIY Homemade Sugar Cubes

It's the middle of our second Indian Summer of the month, and as much as I would like to be sharing a new bread recipe, I just couldn't bring myself to turn on the oven to try it again with another tweak or two. There have been two attempts thus far- one was pretty much a fail, and the second loaf tasted good but was rather more...dense...that I was aiming for.

However, I've had homemade sugar cubes in the back of my mind for a very long while, and it seemed like a good time to get them out in the real world.

Sparkling Vegan Lemon Sandwich Cookies

Back in November, I found myself with a 50% off coupon and some Border's Bucks that needed to be spent. So I wandered around aimlessly for a while (I get kind of overwhelmed, like a kid in a candy store), until I spotted a small book with Gourmet's name on it. I'm a sucker for anything with their stamp since it was such a beautiful, well thought out magazine, and their recipes always work.

So, what was it? The Gourmet Cookie Book! The editors picked their favorite cookie recipe from each year of the magazine's existence, rephotographed and retested them all, and published them all in a beautiful collection.

Due to December in general and Etsy Christmas orders in particular, I wasn't able to bake anything from it. Then I saw this post over on Smitten Kitchen, and her batch of cookies turned out perfectly. Next, I decided that a) I wanted to bring something fun to a New Year's Eve party and b) I wanted to try something new. So I perused the book, and picked out these because they are mini, cute, and sparkly. I chose white, purple, and yellow sugars only because I liked the colors. (For one of my survey responders, purple is my favorite)  In fact, one party-goer commented that these were "the only purple food that actually looked appetizing," which I take as a major compliment!

One of the great things about these is you can totally customize the colors you roll the dough in to coordinate with whatever event you make these for. I'm thinking wedding favors, super bowl parties, or princess birthday parties (whichever is your cup of tea). Plus, they look like macaroons, which are oh-so-trendy right now. AND lemons are in season currently.

I also used a dozen of these mini delights as December's installment of A Year of Sweet Treats. The groom somehow missed them at the party, so they were brand new to him.

Sparkling Vegan Lemon Sandwich Cookies
adapted from The Gourmet Cookie Book, but barely

For Cookies:
2 sticks vegan butter, at room temperature
1/2 C confectioners' sugar
zest from half a lemon
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/3 C all-purpose flour
2/3 C cornstarch
white and colored sanding sugars

For Filling:
1 C confectioners' sugar
zest from half a lemon
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp corn syrup
1/2 stick vegan butter, at room temperature

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and line a couple baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicone liner.

Beat together butter and confectioners' sugar until it's pale and fluffy, then add in zest and vanilla. With the mixer on low, add in flour and cornstarch, and beat just until a soft dough forms.

Put your colored sugars in different bowls. Roll a scant teaspoon of dough into a ball between your hands, and then drop it in the sugar and roll to coat. Place covered balls on baking sheet fairly close together, about 3/4 inch. Chill the sheet of cookies in the freezer for 5-10 minutes or in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to help preserve their shape when you bake them.

Bake until the cookie tops are slightly cracked but still pale, about 13 minutes. Leave the cookies on the parchment and transfer both to a rack to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining dough on fresh (cool) cookie sheets.

To make the filling, beat together all the filling ingredients in a small/medium bowl with an electric mixer. Transfer frosting to a zip top bag and snip a corner off, or use a disposable pastry bag. Pipe filling onto the flat side of one cookie and sandwich with a second cookie. Keep the sandwiched cookies chilled until ready to eat.

Notes:
If you use regular butter, add 1/4 tsp of salt when you add the flour.

Depending on how fast your oven heats up, you might want to wait to preheat it until you're just about done rolling your first cookie sheet's worth of cookies.

p.s. Don't miss your chance to win some of my delicious vegan & gluten free fudge!

I'm baaa-aaack

I realize it's been a while since my last post. Like, a long while. Things were rather busy, and then really busy, and then I needed a minute to breathe and recover, and now, here I am. See it all started with a wedding I made cookies for (if you're a facebook fan, you may have heard about this wedding). There were 250 cookies to be baked, frosted, custom messaged and packaged. Luckily, my fabulous neighbors came over to help. Well, to be fair, the Most Glamorous 4-Year-Old I know didn't help so much as play with cookie cutters. Her mom, however, was a great help. Thank you!

Obviously, I took some pictures of my finished product, and hopefully you all can tell it was a time-intensive labor of love. Brooke wanted rainbow colors for her frosting and packaging, and she chose 6 custom messages for her vegan cookies. Best wishes to Brooke and Justin! Once I got those finished, packed, and mailed, Mom flew out here for a birthday visit (hers, not mine). We had a grand old time up in Longbeach at a giant quilt show (and I do mean giant. Pictures to come). I also wrapped up my summer term at school, which meant a flurry of homework, the final project, and, of course, the final test. I'm proud to say, the flurry paid off, and I ended up with an A. whew.

Oh yeah, and in the midst of all of that, Official Taster and I decided to move to a different (read: less expensive) apartment. So the current flurry consists of packing and Craigslist-selling.

But I missed you! So while posts may be a little sporadic, I will be trying to get recipes and other items of interest up.

New items for Valentine's, Weddings, Anti-Valentines, and Birthday Parties

Well, today I managed to photograph all the cookies and fudge I made yesterday and post 5, count'em five, new items on ShortandSweets. I feel so productive!

I did learn that candy molds don't really work for fudge. I tried to make some rose shaped fudge and it just fell apart/didn't come out of the mold. Fudge doesn't get as hard as candy so it doesn't "pop" nicely. Oh well, it was worth a try. I did make some heart shaped fudge in an ice cube tray. The other lesson from the week is that clean glass in ones kitchen windows make doing the dishes much more pleasant.

Go! Check out all my new stuff! Tell your friends! ;)

Hearts and More

So tonight I am making vegan Valentine, Anti-Valentine, and Alphabet cookies. For the Anti Valentine cookies, I'm going to roll out the dough and cut out circles. After I bake them, I will frost a black heart in the center and then do a red outline and crossout. I like it :) Valentine cookies are much more predictable. I have the whole alphabet of letters, so I want to show people I can bake whatever message they want to spell. Tonight's letters? You'll have to check back to see!

More Results

This pic above is the result of the vegan and gluten free chocolate popcorn cranberry recipe. It tastes pretty good! Sweet cranberries contrasting with the semisweet chocolate. This time I poured it all into a 9 in pan and smooshed it around until it was evenly distributed. After it hardened, I cut it into wedges, as you can see. I think next time I will make it into small portions instead of one big chunk because it was pretty messy to cut and wanted to break apart into less than pretty shapes. I'm thinking muffin tins maybe.
These pretty vegan cookies were fun to make! I cut out the big hearts first and then cut little ones out of the middle and switched them into the other dough flavor. I added some orange zest to the light dough so the combination is chocolate orange. The chocolate cookies are REALLY chocolate since I used melted semisweet chocolate to flavor the dough, not cocoa powder. For the icing, I just piped melted chocolate onto the cookies. I also made these in star and flower shapes. I will get them onto shortandsweets.etsy.com shortly so you can see the other photos. Perfect for your sweetheart on Valentine's Day or as wedding favors :)

Hello!

Hello and Happy New Year!
This past fall I started my store on Etsy and I'm expanding to the blogosphere as part of my New Year New Plan. So, first, check it out: shortandsweets.etsy.com
I've got all sorts of delicious gluten free and vegan desserts, treats, and delights for sale. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get my masterpiece up there this year. For a Christmas party I attended I brought this dessert:

Everything (except the tree) is edible on it, which seemed pretty cool. Popcorn, cranberries, cookies, and candy canes dress the tree, while the presents at the bottom are cut up fudge wrapped with ribbon. My other holiday project that didn't make it to my site was delicious smelling Christmas ornaments in various cookie cutter shapes and decorated with glitter:

They made our living room smell yummy!
In the upcoming week, I hope to post new items for sale for Valentine's Day and spring time. If you have any ideas for vegan or gluten free items you'd like to see for sale, please let me know!