Tuesday, July 26, 2011

They Ride On Silver Moonbeams!

I have to preface this by saying that my sister was really the inspiration for me making these cookies in the first place, and the sole supplier of their name. Like two best friends in kindergarten, when we’re together in the right circumstances we revert to the least mature people we’ve ever been. Honestly – the stupidest things, that only a 5-year-old boy would find amusing (think writing “boobies” on a calculator or telling someone that you  can’t wait to visit Lake Titicaca) we wind up rolling on the floor from. When it was on, we’d watch Whose Line is it Anyway? and  kill ourselves laughing just as much as when we’d tune into the CBC political satire Air Farce. She sends me all sorts of links to YouTube videos and game sites that always wind up killing way more time than I have to spare, but are always hilarious and something we bond over.

One of the latest games she showed me (and subsequently made me play through, along with most of the others on that site) was “Robot Unicorn Attack”. As we (and by “we”, I mean that I played and she watched from the Peanut Gallery), that got her into talking about unicorns, and she brought up one of the lines from possibly the greatest show on current TV, Supernatural. Dean (one of the main characters, and a drop-dead gorgeous one at that) was opining about how angels didn’t exist (but oh yes, they do!) and the following conversation ensues between him and his brother Sam:
Sam: Dean, there's ten times as much lore about angels as there is about anything else we've ever hunted.
Dean: You know what, there's a ton of lore on unicorns too. In fact, I hear that they ride on silver moonbeams, and that they shoot rainbows out of their ass!
So yes, more laughter. Then of course I could only ever think of rainbows whenever I saw any reference to unicorns, and on my way home one afternoon I actually saw a bona fide rainbow and knew I just had to commemorate it. And what better than funky-coloured cookies in swirly patterns? I had a recipe from AllRecipes that I knew would be perfect for my goals called “Play Dough Cookies”, so I got to work playing around with the different colours and marbling. Of course, once the “pinwheeling” part of the recipe came into play, I discovered I still had the same problem that plagues me when I make anything swirly: I wind up making mountains rather than nice flat rounds. When my sister saw them before hitting the oven, they were looking quite rude, and she originally called them the more vulgar form of “unicorn dung”, luckily once they baked and flattened out a bit she changed her terminology to “Unicorn Farts”, which remains their name.

These cookies are your standard cream-cheese sugar cookie, with a little less sugar and a little more flavour and texture. I used my standard egg replacer powder simply due to the fact that I didn’t have any “free to use” eggs around. No coconut flour? Add just a touch of coconut extract instead. The result is nice and tender, sweet but not achingly sugary swirls with a hint of tang and a fun presentation! Call them what you will, but you won’t go wrong with these with kids!


Unicorn Farts (AKA Playdough Cookies)
Makes 12
¼ cup + 2 tbsp butter, softened
1 ½ oz cream cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp egg replacer + 2 tbsp water (or 1 egg)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon extract
½ tbsp lemon juice
Zest of ½ lemon
2/3 cup flour
1/3 cup coconut flour
1/3 cup spelt flour
½ tsp baking powder
pinch salt
food colouring (pastes are best for bright colours)
  1. In a bowl cream butter, cream cheese and sugar until fluffy.
  2. Add egg replacer, extracts, lemon juice and lemon zest, beat until smooth.
  3. In a medium bowl combine flours, baking powder and salt.
  4. Add to the creamed mixture and stir until a soft dough forms.
  5. Divide dough into 4 and tint each with a different colour.
  6. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours.
  7. Preheat oven to 350F.
  8. Divide dough into 12 portions per colour, and place one of each colour together per cookie.
  9. Roll the compound of colours into a large snake, then coil into a round.
  10. Place 3" apart on lightly greased baking sheets.
  11. Bake cookies for 10 minutes on the lowest rack of the oven.
  12. Cool and store in an airtight container.
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 130.0
Total Fat: 7.4 g
Cholesterol: 19.2 mg
Sodium: 51.9 mg
Total Carbs: 14.6 g
Dietary Fiber: 1.7 g
Protein: 1.8 g 

4 comments :

  1. You and your sister are hilarious. These are ...quite something!! Colorful! I'd have to try and figure out natural food colorings, though, because I just KNOW that between the sugar and the dye, there would be kids stuck to the ceiling...!

    ReplyDelete
  2. There are a few organic brands out there, none paste that I've seen: http://www.naturesflavors.com/default.php?cPath=72 is the one I know of

    ReplyDelete
  3. And: perhaps you need to make your own pastes. Sounds like a product which needs to exist, yes?

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for the feedback!