Can you tell which cookies Simon decorated?

Since we last year we dyed Easter Eggs with only natural pigments I thought it would be fun to try and make our own natural food dyes and use them to decorate our Christmas cookies. I learned a lot in the process and I will share my processes and then what I learned and what I would change next time. First some cute pictures of Simon Decorating our cookies : )

I bought Simon these nifty little icing containers thinking they would be perfect to cookie decorating and containing some of the mess. They proved pretty difficult for him to be to squeeze, he just doesn’t have the dexterity yet. I decided he would be better off just with icing in bags.

it quickly turned into this…

Next time I will know just to put the icing in zip lock bags and cut the corner off. By the end of this project pretty much every surface in my house was sticky.

The pigments we used in the icing were made from the following foods; strawberry, wheatgrass, cranberry, spinach, beet, and seaweed. I was trying for a Christmassy red and green. By far my favorites were the beet and wheatgrass. They both produced bright vivid colors and tasted wonderful. I loved the strawberry for flavor because it was really flavorful – packed with strawberry taste but the color was pretty pail (I would use this for a strawberry cake though). The seaweed was a big mistake. It tasted like minty fish – it was disgusting! Just don’t even try it. I knew from the moment that I opened the lid on the food processor that it was not going to turn out well but at that point I was committed so I just tried to cover up the fish flavor with peppermint extract – it didn’t work. All the other flavors tasted great – especially the beet which surprised me since I thought it would have that typical earthy flavor but instead it tasted like a vaguely familiar berry.

The natural red food coloring ingredients

the natural green food coloring ingredients

Here is how I made our natural food colorings

Cranberry
1.    Boil down one bag of cranberries with about 4 cups of water – boil until all cranberries have popped and sauce is thick.
2.    Puree cranberry sauce in the food processor
3.    Push cranberry sauce through a fine mesh sieve

Strawberry
1.    Put store bought freeze dried strawberries in a food processor process until a fine powder
Seaweed (Nori) – NOT RECOMMENDED
1.    Put store bought nori sheets (for sushi) in a food processor process until a fine powder

Spinach
1.    Steam 2 -3 cups spinach leaves until bright green
2.   Combine in food processor with 1 tablespoon peppermint extract and 3 capsules Ascorbic Acid – blend until smooth

A note on the spinach – I thought that the spinach flavor would be to strong so I added peppermint extract to cover up the spinach flavor – it worked a little to well and combined with the taste of the vitamin C it sort of tasted like tooth paste – not a bad taste but not my favorite either. next time I would leave out the peppermint

Wheatgrass
1.    Puree about 1/3cup wheatgrass with 3 capsules ascorbic acid and 3 tablespoons water.
2.    Push puree through a fine mesh sieve to make wheat grass juice

the ascorbic acid is used as a natural preservative to help keep the plant leaves from turning brown. I learned this trick from a pest recipe years ago.

Beet
1.    place beets (tops removes) in glass dish with  about 2 inches of water. Cover with foil and bake at 400 for about 45 min (up to an hour for very large beets).
2.    Let beets cool, remove from beet juice.  ( at this point you may want to make this tasty beet salad with the beets)
3.    Move beet juice to a pot and boil until juice is reduced to a thick syrup.

Once I had my  coloring additives I used this recipe for royal icing. I cut the recipe in half for each color since I was making so many color I didn’t think I needed 4 lbs of icing.

The process for the wet dyes was as follows :
Combine confectioner’s sugar and meringue powder in the mixer, stir to combine
Add liquid coloring one tablespoon at a time until icing reaches desired consistency.

The process for the powdered dyes was as follows:
Combine confectioner’s sugar and meringue powder, and about 1/4cup powdered coloring  in the mixer, stir to combine
Add water one tablespoon at a time until icing reaches desired consistency.

This recipe made for very thick icing and since I wanted it a bit more runny so it would dry smooth I ended adding about 2 more tablespoons of liquid per batch.

Here are photos at each step of the process.

1.    cranberries being cooked down into “cranberry sauce”
2.    Completely cooked cranberries
3.    cranberries after having been run through the food processor, being pushed through a sieve
4.    finished cranberry sauce
5.    freeze dried strawberries in food processor
6.    powdered freeze dried strawberries
7.    crumpled sheets of nori in food processor
8.    powered nori
9.    steaming spinach until bright green
10.    pureeing spinach with peppermint extract
11.    pureeing wheatgrass with water
12.    my secret to keeping greens green – vitamin C.
13.    beets being prepped for cooking
14.    cooked beets in “juice”
15.    boiling down beet juice
16.    finished beet juice reduced to about 4 table spoons of syrup.

Here is what the finished icings looked like

Here are the colors that the icings dried to

(Simon messed up a bunch of my frosting job by poking his fingers into the half dried icing)

All but the seaweed tasted and looked wonderful. I only iced the one cookie with the seaweed for demonstration purposes and I gave it to Myles. When he first bit into it he said mmm – minty.  After he had eaten about half of it I asked him if he really liked it – he said the mint flavor was really strong and that he thought there was another flavor in it but he couldn’t nail it down. Then he said “Why!? what’s in this?!” (I am known for a bit of experimental cooking – I have bade brownies with black beans and grasshopper pie with avocado – Myles is often the guinea pig) I asked if he thought it tasted fishy at all and at that point he got really grossed out and stopped eating the cookie. (I don’t know how he ate any of it,  it tasted disgusting! – Simon thought so too)

So this was our experiment – we had a lot of fun and next time I think we will branch out and try other colors. My synopsis is that the beet boiled down juice method was the most successful at getting a bright color and easiest method. I would stick with that. I also liked that to make beet juice I ended up with tasty beets for dinner – nothing was wasted. Next time I would like to expand on this method to try other colors from pre-juiced fruits and vegetables. I think buying store bought juices would save a lot of time and I can imagine the colors that would result from juices like blueberry, carrot, and pomegranate. It’s simple to boil a cup or two of juice down to a syrup so if you try it and make icing send me a note!

Until next time

-Emily
My Portfolio | Contact Me | Follow Me @emilyWbrown

I have declared October Pumpkin month and we are on a mission to make and consume as much pumpkin as possible. So this recipe is part of the pumpkin project. Risotto is  really not the most photogenic of foods but this was sure delicious.I am giving it 5 stars and i will most definitely be making it again. Here is the recipe if you want to try it. I did add mushrooms and spinach to the recipe and we ate it as the main dish. It was very hardy and satisfying.

Here is everything that went into the risotto minus the pumpkin, onion, and garlic

They were such beautiful mushrooms I thought they deserved their own photo

I tried to get Simon to do some of the chopping for me but I don’t trust him with a real knife so I just gave him pumpkin carving tool. It’s nearly impossible to cut yourself with it because you have to saw with it to make it work and it’s pretty dull. Turns out it’s also pretty hard to cut mushrooms with it and Simon gave up pretty fast. On a side note anyone sell pampered chef? it seems like I remember them making a kid knife that was similar to the pumpkin carving tool but only better. I would love to get one now.

stirring stirring stirring…

This is probably the main reason that I don’t make risotto more often. It requires nearly constant stirring for 20 – 25 min. Simon was only interested for about 2 min. Notice the Thyme in his hand, I did get him to pick off the leaves for me :  )

and here is the final product. So I know it looks like a blow of orange rice but tryst me it is amazing! The pumpkin flavor is very subtle though and I thought it could actually do with more. Maybe even chunks of roasted pumpkin in there.

until next time!

-Emily

I have been reading the blog Foodie Tots. It’s a good read and it has inspired me to cook with Simon more. Simon really enjoys “helping” (read: making a mess) with all things kitchen related. Truthfully Myles is much better about incorporating him. I get in the mind set of “I just need to get it done!” So this week I set aside some time to bake with him, no stress to get it perfect or time constraints I just wanted to let him experience it and have a good time. Since it’s October and we are into all things pumpkin related I deiced to make pumpkin cookies. (We are going to try and eat as much pumpkin as we can stand this month – more post about this to follow shortly).So here is the story of our pumpkin cookie adventure told through photographs.

“you’re the one who thinks this is a good idea mom.”

smelling the ingredients (nutmeg) – it’s important to experience your food with all your senses.

Measure out the flour. (I quickly learned that I can’t step away to take a photo as Simon will just shovel as much flour out of the container as fast as he can.

adding the other dry ingredients – I think this was the highlight for Simon he liked dumping out the contents of the “poon” (spoon).

Sifting the dry ingredients

being annoyed with mom because she has taken over sifting the dry ingredients because they were being thrown all over the counter and floor.

adding the pumpkin puree.

Simon is afraid of the mixer – well the sound the mixer makes, so at this point he left the kitchen and I dropped the cookie dough on to baking sheets.

The hard part, waiting for the cookies to be done. This was the first time that I have thought to show Simon the window in the oven. He was fascinated!

having some dinner while waiting for the cookies too cool.  Whole wheat pasta with fresh pesto – maybe he is a foodie?

Here they are iced and ready to eat…

and the verdict is…

YUM!

Thanks for reading! That was actually fairly painless, I am going to try and include Simon more in the cooking. After all at some point I  want to hand over that task to him and let him be in charge of making dinner!”

until next time!

- Emily

My Portfolio | Contact Me | Follow Me @emilyWbrown