Venus Rising

Food for SoulIssue: Sagittarius 08 & Honest Self Expression

Paint the Cookies, Sculpt the Cookies, and Make them New

Watercolor by Philip GaligaSugar cookies emerge every year for the church bazaar, the annual neighborhood cookie swap, the office cookie tray, and the ever-full Christmas cookie jar. What began in Medieval Arab regions of the world as sugary white cakes, often with ground nuts, has transformed over time into tender cookies with crisp edges created from dough that can be rolled and cut. The act of decorating sugar cookies began in the 14^th century with imprinted Biblical scenes made with carved wooden rolling pins or wooden molds. The act of adorning the cookie with colored frosting was developed by early German gingerbread bakers who made elaborate houses and fancy Christmas tree decorations. With this in mind, settlers in North America employed tinsmiths to design cookie cutters and by the late 1800’s, cookie cutters were a phenomenon with a firm hold on the holiday baking scene.

The best sugar cookie recipe, however, is subjective and will likely remain your family recipe. If you want to change the cookie itself, make the change small and unobtrusive. The easiest and least fussy options are to add a touch of extract, the flavor of your choosing, to your batter. You could also add a touch of zest; orange, lime, or lemon. These alterations will change the flavor slightly while leaving the texture of the cookie intact.

Big change and big creativity should remain in the decorating. Red, white, and green will always show up on a cookie tray. To express your own style, try bold colors of purple or turquoise. Or, be trendy with shades of browns and greens naming them things like spring seedling or desert. It will, of course, will take lots of experimenting to get the color you want and the four color pack in the spice aisle at the grocery store will not get you far in creating your own palette. Baking and pastry supply websites offer superior food coloring, often in gel format. Gels from these purveyors are often found in a variety of colors, all with greater intensity than those found at the local food mart.

Of course, there are also plenty of food sources to make your own all-natural colors. Colors derived from natural sources tend to be less intense so you will likely need to practice extracting and dying before decorating day.

And maybe expressing your own style comes not in the color you choose but in the way in which you put it on the cookie. Perhaps piping is your calling. This would mean that a whole new set of kitchens gadgets could be at your beckoning. Or, maybe you are super industrious and can create your own design with an original stencil.