#MeatlessMonday: Kale, Sweet Potato, and Feta Galette with a Turmeric Crust

 

A Galette is akin to a pie or a tart; however, with a free form fold over crust – rustic, they call it. Thankful, I am to have become familiar with its versatility as a pastry. The clumsier I am with folding their crusts, the more beautiful they turn out. This glitch works out perfectly for me! Virtually fool proof, quick and easy, galettes can be sweet or savory.

With loads of success, I’ve been experimenting with savory vegetable galettes. I look forward to venturing in to sweet fruit ones.

The idea for making a galette first came to mind when I realized in planning a luncheon recently just how much time I DIDN’T HAVE to make individual hand pies. Taking a chance on those initial galettes, I was beyond thrilled when they were the first thing to disappear from the serving table. Because I love it when that happens, I decided to try it again. This recent version given as a hostess gift to friends we recently visited was also well received. 

With its colorful turmeric tainted light and flakey crust, sautéed curly kale and roasted sweet potatoes, this galette is fit for brunch, lunch or dinner. Because I often feel as if everything goes better with cheese, there is also an optional delicious pinch of salt from the creamy feta added to give a little richness.

I encourage everyone to take familiar flavors and present them in different ways. Don’t be surprised if this formula becomes your new obsession as well.

Kale, Sweet Potato and Feta Galette with a Turmeric Crust

Yield: 4 as a main course double serving, 6 – 8 as a single serving

Special equipment: Baking cookie sheet, parchment paper

The Madness: The Ingredients

Turmeric Crust

Yield: 1 crust

2 cups AP flour

½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. turmeric
2 tbs. fresh thyme leaves
1 ½ stick of unsalted butter/ 12 tbs. (chilled)
⅓ cup of ice cold water
1 egg, finishing eggwash

The Madness: The Ingredients

Kale, Sweet Potato, and Feta Filling

Yield: 1 quart of kale filling and 1 pint of roasted sweet potato rounds

Special equipment: Cookie sheet

3 small sweet potatoes

1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 bunches of curly kale, soaked, cleaned and stemmed
1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 large white onion, small diced
1 medium red pepper, small diced
pinch of kosher salt
1 tsp. of ground garam masala or cumin (optional)
½  - 1 tsp. of favorite All Purpose vegetable seasoning
2 oz of block feta, small diced (optional)

The Method: The Assembly: The Crust

Keeping It Real Disclosure:To make a great crust, it is important to have COLD butter, and COLD water. I quarter the tablespoons of butter, place them in to a small bowl back in to the freezer, along with the measured out water as I lay out and prepare the additional ingredients for the crust.

In a food processor fitted with the kneading (duller) blade, add the sifted flour, salt, turmeric, and fresh thyme leaves. Pulse the dry ingredients 5 - 7 times to aerate the flour and combine the ingredients evenly. The addition of the turmeric to the dough creates a warm flavor that in my opinion works well with the fresh lemony essence of the fresh thyme leaves.

If you’ve ever had a Jamaican beef patty, you’ve enjoyed a flakey turmeric crust.

 

Now, you’re about to make one.

Add and butter. Continue to pulse these ingredients until well combined, maybe 10 – 15 pulses, approximately 1 – 2 minutes. Remove the lid from the food processor and take a look.  This is an important visual.  The combined dough will appear grainy, like lightly moistened beach sand, in what is often called “varied pea sized” bits. Reassemble food processor; continue to pulse while drizzling in the ⅓ cup of cold water.  Your dough will come together before your eyes, eventually pulling away from the sides of the food processor as it just starts to form into a ball. 

Keeping It Real Disclosure:Roll your dough out on to parchment paper. I use parchment paper in order to control the amount of flour being added to the formed crust. With a base of parchment paper, there is no need to add additional flour when pulling or kneading the dough in to a ball to rest.

Knead lightly, forming your dough into a disc, tear off an additional sheet of parchment paper to place on top of the dough. I then lightly press the dough in to a 6” disc before refrigerating it to rest. Pressing the dough out slightly saves me time when I have to roll the dough out altogether. This also minimizes the exposure of the dough to the warm temperatures of my kitchen as the oven preheats.

Remember: Cold dough equals flakey crust.  Work as quickly as possible.

Rest the dough in the refrigerator for a minimum of one (1) hour. However, when I have the chance, I like to make my dough and filling a day ahead before assembly and baking to allow all of the flavors to meld. If you do this as well, store the dough and filling separately. The actual assembly and baking of the galette takes place on day two (2).

When ready to roll out the dough, be sure to roll out the dough between the two sheets of parchment paper to about ⅛ - ¼” round or oval thickness.  Again, as our kitchen tends to get very warm, after the dough has been rolled out, I place the dough on the baking sheet and return it to the refrigerator to keep cool as the filling is prepared. If your filling was prepared the day before, allow the filling to sit out for approximately 10 minutes to come up to room temperature a little. If you’re making your filling, and assembling the galette on the same day, allow your filling to cool slightly before filling the crust to bake.

The Method: The Assembly: Kale, Sweet Potato, and Feta Filling

Preheat oven 400˚

Peel the Sweet Potatoes. Slice them across in ½” rounds. Drizzle 2 tsps. of extra virgin olive oil on to the rounds.  Toss the sweet potato rounds to coat them well with the extra virgin olive oil.  Lay the rounds in a single layer on to a baking sheet.

Roast the sweet potato rounds for 10 minutes, flip them over and roast the rounds on their opposite sides for an additional 10 - 15 minutes.

As the sweet potatoes roast,

Wash and destem the kale carefully, leaving the tender leafy greens. Save the stalks for making stock later in the week. Gather the leafy kale pieces, rolling up the leaves where possible to cut across or tear them in to smaller bite sized pieces.

Dice into small cuts the onion, and then the red pepper. Set each aside. Dice the feta in to ¼” cubes and set them aside.

Add the tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil to a heavy bottom sauté pan or skillet. I use my trusty 12” cast iron pan over medium heat. Sauté the onion and pepper 3 – 5 minutes until the onion just start to become translucent, and the pepper has softened.

 
Add the kale leaves to the skillet. Add the dried seasonings. The leaves will immediately begin to wilt, and possibly draw a bit of water. Sauté the combined vegetables for approximately 10 minutes until the kale have cooked through.  If you find the kale isn’t moist enough while cooking, and potentially sticking to the pan, feel free to add ⅛ cup of stock or water to loosen the vegetable mixture. Once the kale, onions and peppers have cooked down approximately 7 minutes, and all of the additional moisture has reduced, add half of the reserved feta. Stir the cheese in to the cooking vegetable mixture.  Some of the cheese will melt through.

Once the feta cheese has been added and the kale has cooked through, turn off the mixture. Allow the vegetables to come to room temperature before refrigerating overnight or for at least 20 minutes if you’re assembling the galette immediately.

Take the rolled out galette dough from the refrigerator leaving the bottom layer of parchment paper on the baking sheet. Remove the top layer of parchment paper.

Layer the roasted sweet potato rounds onto the galette crust. Starting at the center and working your way around.  Reserve a few pieces of sweet potato to add to the top of the galette as garnish. Add the kale mixture on top of the sweet potato rounds, filling the galette crust, mounding it in the center and working the vegetables outward to a thinner layer as you make your way from the center of the dough, leaving approximately 2” of bare dough around the edge of the galette. Add the remaining sweet potatoes to the top of the kale vegetable mound. Fold the overhang of dough on top of the vegetable and cheese mixture, making your way around the galette. The dough will automatically pleat itself as you pull it up to fold it. If it looks imperfect, don’t worry, it will bake beautifully. 

Crack and scramble the lone untouched egg from your crust ingredient list. Brush a few strokes of the scrambled egg wash over the outside surface of the entire pastry dough. Discard the remaining egg mixture. The egg wash will help to create a glistening gold brown exterior on the outside of your pastry.

Bake the galette for 25 – 30 minutes at 400˚. Check on the pastry at 15 minutes, rotating it in your oven. Once the galette is removed from the oven, If you’d like to add the last of the reserved feta to the top of the vegetables, the reserved heat from the baked galette will melt the cheese. If not, feel free to omit. Baking the galette on the parchment that it the dough was rolled out on makes for easy clean up and storage.

Allow the galette to cool completely before wrapping it. I found that folding the parchment paper over then wrapping it in layers of aluminum foil worked perfectly for travel, refrigeration, and with a little butchers’ twine, gifting.

Reheat in a 350˚F oven for 5 – 7 minutes.

As always, Enjoy!
xo, Bon Appégeechee

#MeatlessMonday: Kale, Sweet Potato, and Feta Galette with a Turmeric Crust

 

A Galette is akin to a pie or a tart; however, with a free form fold over crust – rustic, they call it. Thankful, I am to have become familiar with its versatility as a pastry. The clumsier I am with folding their crusts, the more beautiful they turn out. This glitch works out perfectly for me! Virtually fool proof, quick and easy, galettes can be sweet or savory.

With loads of success, I’ve been experimenting with savory vegetable galettes. I look forward to venturing in to sweet fruit ones.

The idea for making a galette first came to mind when I realized in planning a luncheon recently just how much time I DIDN’T HAVE to make individual hand pies. Taking a chance on those initial galettes, I was beyond thrilled when they were the first thing to disappear from the serving table. Because I love it when that happens, I decided to try it again. This recent version given as a hostess gift to friends we recently visited was also well received. 

With its colorful turmeric tainted light and flakey crust, sautéed curly kale and roasted sweet potatoes, this galette is fit for brunch, lunch or dinner. Because I often feel as if everything goes better with cheese, there is also an optional delicious pinch of salt from the creamy feta added to give a little richness.

I encourage everyone to take familiar flavors and present them in different ways. Don’t be surprised if this formula becomes your new obsession as well.

Kale, Sweet Potato and Feta Galette with a Turmeric Crust

Yield: 4 as a main course double serving, 6 – 8 as a single serving

Special equipment: Baking cookie sheet, parchment paper

The Madness: The Ingredients

Turmeric Crust

Yield: 1 crust

2 cups AP flour

½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. turmeric
2 tbs. fresh thyme leaves
1 ½ stick of unsalted butter/ 12 tbs. (chilled)
⅓ cup of ice cold water
1 egg, finishing eggwash

The Madness: The Ingredients

Kale, Sweet Potato, and Feta Filling

Yield: 1 quart of kale filling and 1 pint of roasted sweet potato rounds

Special equipment: Cookie sheet

3 small sweet potatoes

1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 bunches of curly kale, soaked, cleaned and stemmed
1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 large white onion, small diced
1 medium red pepper, small diced
pinch of kosher salt
1 tsp. of ground garam masala or cumin (optional)
½  - 1 tsp. of favorite All Purpose vegetable seasoning
2 oz of block feta, small diced (optional)

The Method: The Assembly: The Crust

Keeping It Real Disclosure: To make a great crust, it is important to have COLD butter, and COLD water. I quarter the tablespoons of butter, place them in to a small bowl back in to the freezer, along with the measured out water as I lay out and prepare the additional ingredients for the crust.

In a food processor fitted with the kneading (duller) blade, add the sifted flour, salt, turmeric, and fresh thyme leaves. Pulse the dry ingredients 5 - 7 times to aerate the flour and combine the ingredients evenly. The addition of the turmeric to the dough creates a warm flavor that in my opinion works well with the fresh lemony essence of the fresh thyme leaves.

If you’ve ever had a Jamaican beef patty, you’ve enjoyed a flakey turmeric crust.

 

Now, you’re about to make one.

Add and butter. Continue to pulse these ingredients until well combined, maybe 10 – 15 pulses, approximately 1 – 2 minutes. Remove the lid from the food processor and take a look.  This is an important visual.  The combined dough will appear grainy, like lightly moistened beach sand, in what is often called “varied pea sized” bits. Reassemble food processor; continue to pulse while drizzling in the ⅓ cup of cold water.  Your dough will come together before your eyes, eventually pulling away from the sides of the food processor as it just starts to form into a ball. 

Keeping It Real Disclosure: Roll your dough out on to parchment paper. I use parchment paper in order to control the amount of flour being added to the formed crust. With a base of parchment paper, there is no need to add additional flour when pulling or kneading the dough in to a ball to rest.

Knead lightly, forming your dough into a disc, tear off an additional sheet of parchment paper to place on top of the dough. I then lightly press the dough in to a 6” disc before refrigerating it to rest. Pressing the dough out slightly saves me time when I have to roll the dough out altogether. This also minimizes the exposure of the dough to the warm temperatures of my kitchen as the oven preheats.

Remember: Cold dough equals flakey crust.  Work as quickly as possible.

Rest the dough in the refrigerator for a minimum of one (1) hour. However, when I have the chance, I like to make my dough and filling a day ahead before assembly and baking to allow all of the flavors to meld. If you do this as well, store the dough and filling separately. The actual assembly and baking of the galette takes place on day two (2).

When ready to roll out the dough, be sure to roll out the dough between the two sheets of parchment paper to about ⅛ - ¼” round or oval thickness.  Again, as our kitchen tends to get very warm, after the dough has been rolled out, I place the dough on the baking sheet and return it to the refrigerator to keep cool as the filling is prepared. If your filling was prepared the day before, allow the filling to sit out for approximately 10 minutes to come up to room temperature a little. If you’re making your filling, and assembling the galette on the same day, allow your filling to cool slightly before filling the crust to bake.

The Method: The Assembly: Kale, Sweet Potato, and Feta Filling

Preheat oven 400˚

Peel the Sweet Potatoes. Slice them across in ½” rounds. Drizzle 2 tsps. of extra virgin olive oil on to the rounds.  Toss the sweet potato rounds to coat them well with the extra virgin olive oil.  Lay the rounds in a single layer on to a baking sheet.

Roast the sweet potato rounds for 10 minutes, flip them over and roast the rounds on their opposite sides for an additional 10 - 15 minutes.

As the sweet potatoes roast,

Wash and destem the kale carefully, leaving the tender leafy greens. Save the stalks for making stock later in the week. Gather the leafy kale pieces, rolling up the leaves where possible to cut across or tear them in to smaller bite sized pieces.

Dice into small cuts the onion, and then the red pepper. Set each aside. Dice the feta in to ¼” cubes and set them aside.

Add the tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil to a heavy bottom sauté pan or skillet. I use my trusty 12” cast iron pan over medium heat. Sauté the onion and pepper 3 – 5 minutes until the onion just start to become translucent, and the pepper has softened.

 
Add the kale leaves to the skillet. Add the dried seasonings. The leaves will immediately begin to wilt, and possibly draw a bit of water. Sauté the combined vegetables for approximately 10 minutes until the kale have cooked through.  If you find the kale isn’t moist enough while cooking, and potentially sticking to the pan, feel free to add ⅛ cup of stock or water to loosen the vegetable mixture. Once the kale, onions and peppers have cooked down approximately 7 minutes, and all of the additional moisture has reduced, add half of the reserved feta. Stir the cheese in to the cooking vegetable mixture.  Some of the cheese will melt through.

Once the feta cheese has been added and the kale has cooked through, turn off the mixture. Allow the vegetables to come to room temperature before refrigerating overnight or for at least 20 minutes if you’re assembling the galette immediately.

Take the rolled out galette dough from the refrigerator leaving the bottom layer of parchment paper on the baking sheet. Remove the top layer of parchment paper.

Layer the roasted sweet potato rounds onto the galette crust. Starting at the center and working your way around.  Reserve a few pieces of sweet potato to add to the top of the galette as garnish. Add the kale mixture on top of the sweet potato rounds, filling the galette crust, mounding it in the center and working the vegetables outward to a thinner layer as you make your way from the center of the dough, leaving approximately 2” of bare dough around the edge of the galette. Add the remaining sweet potatoes to the top of the kale vegetable mound. Fold the overhang of dough on top of the vegetable and cheese mixture, making your way around the galette. The dough will automatically pleat itself as you pull it up to fold it. If it looks imperfect, don’t worry, it will bake beautifully. 

Crack and scramble the lone untouched egg from your crust ingredient list. Brush a few strokes of the scrambled egg wash over the outside surface of the entire pastry dough. Discard the remaining egg mixture. The egg wash will help to create a glistening gold brown exterior on the outside of your pastry.

Bake the galette for 25 – 30 minutes at 400˚. Check on the pastry at 15 minutes, rotating it in your oven. Once the galette is removed from the oven, If you’d like to add the last of the reserved feta to the top of the vegetables, the reserved heat from the baked galette will melt the cheese. If not, feel free to omit. Baking the galette on the parchment that it the dough was rolled out on makes for easy clean up and storage.

Allow the galette to cool completely before wrapping it. I found that folding the parchment paper over then wrapping it in layers of aluminum foil worked perfectly for travel, refrigeration, and with a little butchers’ twine, gifting.

Reheat in a 350˚F oven for 5 – 7 minutes.

As always, Enjoy!
xo, Bon Appégeechee

Standing in Faith: Homecoming as a new Mother

 

There is a saying, “Stand Firm in Your Faith”. It encourages strength and diligence in allowing all that you do to be done out of love and sharing.  It allows the unyielding trust and confidence in someone or something to be your guide. I think of this devotion daily; especially, now that my Life has taken a gracious turn.  I am captain to myself, mother to our son, and Love to Jackson.

 

I’ve been away. I’ve missed this place of mine, and the developing culinary camaraderie greatly. However, I return diligent, excited, truly wiser, and with the most amazingly anticipated addition to our family.  Our son, affectionately known as, Herkamer Snooka Booka!

Wee one is a hiccupping giggler, roller-over, squealer, and cooer at three (3) months strong. With an ever developing adamant opinion, he has vowed to be Mommy’s companion and muse in the kitchen. 

Qualified: He drools profusely over talks of his first cheeseburger!

The journey I found myself traveling was of great blessing, depth, learning, intuitiveness, and COMEDY. I laughed “with” myself; often at “Why didn’t anyone ever tell me that?!?”, or “How did I never ask THAT question?” I’ve known pregnant woman all of my life, HOW did knowing THIS would happen escape me?!? I chalked it up to being single and oblivious. When I see the above picture of me nearly nine (9) months into this lifetime Odyssey, I can’t help but to smile in reflection looking forward with great anticipation.  

HALLELU, My love of EATING never failed me, WHEW!!! However, early on, I found myself devastated in that ANY creativity or scent emanating from the kitchen sent me reeling.  REEEEELING!  Jackson was more than happy to take over satisfying my spicy cravings. There wasn’t a day that I didn’t eat hot sauce. Truth be told, I should buy stock inChalula.  Ironically, the hot sauce line is licensed by José Cuervo. I never missed drinking alcohol; however, thoughts of a good margarita during last summer’s heat waves linger. I’m now convinced there is a connection. 

If I didn’t want Mexican food, I wanted East Indian food, and some days I wanted and happily devoured both, with a side of Middle Eastern flavors.  A blessed pregnancy, with minimal incident, I did learn that I CANNOT eat a bag of UTZ Carolina Style BBQ potato chips with a Ritter Sport Milk Chocolate and Hazelnut candy bar for dessert – EVERYDAY.   

HA! It was great trying!  

One thing I was always sure of was that if we were lucky enough to have a baby shower, I wanted to muster the fortitude to get into the kitchen, and make my own guest favors.  I wanted to BAKE SOMETHING in honor of our son’s arrival. I had the idea before the pregnancy.

Baby onesie and paraphernalia sugar cookies were trending EVERYWHEREon the web. I was determined.

Not only were we lucky enough to have two showers, in Charleston and New York City, I was also able to pay the onesie cookie idea forward for a great friend currently expecting. Our Charleston shower was a unisex food, family, friends, and fun event for the ages! Our ladies-only New York shower was a deluge of creativity, boasting the fabulous onesie and burp cloth/cloth diaper decorating station.

BABY SHOWERS are quite aptly named: Truly splendid cloudbursts of Love and Great Anticipation!

 

Knowing what my family and friends are capable of cooperatively, I was on a mission with the onesie cookies.  With a little help from my friends at NY Cake Supplies and Education, I was able to make icing, decorate, wrap and package these take home gifts without ANY prior experience.

As practice increases ability, I look forward trying all sorts of holiday and birthday themed cookies.

Talk about Über-Super-Cute Fantastic!

Sugar Cookie Recipe

Doubled batch to make five (5) – six (6) dozen cookies, using 2-3” cookie cutter. For each shower, I had more than enough cookies to make baking and decorating testers and finalize thirty (30) packets, each containing two cookies.

Tweaked Barely from The Kitchn & KitchenGifts.com

 

The Method: The Ingredients (Cookies)

 

2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

4 ounces cream cheese (half of one pack), softened to room temperature

2 cups sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Zest of one medium lemon

6 cups AP flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

 

The Madness: The Assembly

Preheat your oven to 350˚

In a large bowl, using a hand mixer, cream the butter and cream cheese with the sugar. After beating the batter for several minutes, you will notice that the butter, cream cheese and sugar will develop a light fluffy texture. With my initial “H” batch of cookies, I didn’t add the cream cheese. So, don’t worry if you don’t have any or care to add the additional fat. 

Add and beat in the eggs, one at a time until each is fully incorporated.

Add vanilla extract and lemon zest.

In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter and sugar mixture until fully incorporated and soft dough is formed.

Keeping It Real Disclosure: VERY helpful Hint from KitchenGifts.com

This tip not only expedites your process in managing the baking of five (5) dozen cookies, but it also proves to be great for clean-up. 

At this point in the recipe you would chill your ball of cookie dough. Instead of waiting for your cookie dough ball to chill as one mass for at least an hour, take the freshly made dough and divide it into 3 or more baseball sized spheres.  Place each ball between two sheets of parchment paper. 

Flatten and roll each ball of dough between parchment paper to ⅛” - ¼” desired thickness.  Once you have finished rolling out each ball, place the rolled out parchment covered dough rounds onto a cookie sheet. Then place the cookie sheet into the refrigerator.  I can imagine that you could have one baking sheet topped with stacks of parchment covered dough, or stack as many baking sheets as you have available to alternate between baking.





Continue rolling out your dough between sheets of paper until you have used it all.  By the time you are finished rolling out each ball, the first batch will be completely chilled and ready to cut.  The parchment paper on top and on the bottom of the dough rounds is also genius in that once you remove the top layer parchment to cut your cookie shapes, and you’ve removed the excess cookie dough around the shapes, all of this prepping has been done with your bottom layer parchment still intact and ready to line your baking sheet.

Bonus: I also found that once I had cut out all of my cookies for each batch of dough, I placed all leftover dough in a communal bowl in the refrigerator and repeated the process until all I had was enough dough for one lone onesie! 





You’ve already preheated your oven, and your baking sheet(s) are already prepped with parchment paper because of your dough’s bottom sheet.

Bake cookies for six (6) to eight (8) minutes, depending on the calibration of your oven and thickness of your cookie. The edges around your cookie will just start to turn brown. Slide the parchment paper with the cookies on to a wire rack. Allow the cookies to cool before attempting to remove them from the parchment paper.

Cool completely before icing or decorating if you’re decorating the same day as baking. Otherwise, these cookies also store well in an airtight container if you need to keep them fresh before icing.

As for freshness, I’ve found that once placed into tied cellophane bags for packaging, these cookies can last up to two weeks. Maybe longer, we’ve simply managed to eat any remaining leftovers within that that time period.

As I’ve made these cookies twice: first using onesie and teddy bear cutters, secondly using onesie and bootie cutters, I learned a great lesson between these two batches. Specifically, since as of my second batch, we now had a three (3) month old.

As with any project, Time management is key.

My first batch, I only gave myself the evening before my shower to prepare and package the cookies. I was eight (8) months pregnant, and had a horrid day at work. Coupled with the fact that the recommended time to dry the icing is three (3) to twenty-four (24) hours (the longer the better), I only made cursory icing designs to ensure that the cookies could dry and be packaged on time.

  

As for my second batch, I broke the process in to a few days. Making and rolling out the dough took place on the first day. Cutting, baking and storing the finished cookies took place on the second day. Icing and packaging the cookies took place on the third day. Now that I have a bit more experience at both baking these cookies and managing a baby, I am sure that I can perform the same project in two afternoons, or twenty-four (24) hours to allow for drying time of the icing before packaging.

On to the icing.

The recipe for homemade royal icing never seemed complicated or filled with inaccessible ingredients, but as I was roaming the baking supply store, something even more efficient caught my eye - Royal Icing Mix. Until I become much more of an expert at these sugar cookie projects, I must admit, this mix worked great! Add water according to the packaging instructions, a little vanilla extract, and stir. When I wanted the icing to be thinner, I added a few drops at a time of lemon juice for added flavor. Royal icing thins quickly. I found it better to add liquid in drops at a time. Choose your color(s), and add those drops at a time to the royal icing until your desired color is reached.

 

For my first batch of cookies, I used disposable piping bags, and small tips to guide the icing. For my second project, I went with a simpler approach and filled squeeze bottles with colored royal icing. I smoothed the icing over with a small pastry brush. I tipped the squeeze bottles over into a glasses lined with a wet paper towels. The moisture from the paper town prevented the icing from drying and clogging the nozzle of the squeeze bottles. A trick I learned from The Shiksa.

 



 

This project was an inspired labor of love. I was like a child trying different techniques in art class with colors, squeeze bottles, and pastry brushes, hoping that in the end everyone else enjoyed the cookies as much I did.

 

 

I now know that they did.

 

 



xo, Bon Appégeechee