On hot summer days, who doesn’t love a nice cold popsicle or giant bowl of ice cream to cool off? I have those hawk eyes when it comes to spotting any cold, sweet treat in sight. Maybe it’s that Florida in girl me, who knows, what I do know is that I love sweets, so naturally I love cookies and popsicles. Popsicles have been a huge trend this summer, but then again, when are they not, especially when you feel like your melting minutes after walking out the door.
When I originally planned to test out the Paleo Sugar Cookie recipe, I had wanted to make Pineapple cookies. I was going to order a Pineapple cookie cutter to easily cut out the cookie shapes. My intentions were good, but my bank account didn’t really feel like paying for a cookie cutter that would only be used one time. I’m cheap. I wanted to use a free cutter, so I nixed the pineapple plan (to much cutting and precision with the stem) and decided to go with popsicles instead, and I’m so glad I did!
Instead of buying a cookie cutter, I just cut my own out of cardstock. Pretty resourceful I’d say! Not the best option, but it was free and did the job. I first drew the top half of the popsicle shape and then added the stick. Once I was satisfied with the size and shape of the popsicle, I cut out one stencil from cardstock. It was quick, easy and I could make it any shape and size I wanted!
The next step was the long part…cut out exactly 30-40 cookies using an x-acto knife. When it comes to doing tedious and mindless tasks, I’m your girl. Baking and patience go hand in hand, I could have done this for hours. Ok, maybe not hours, but when cutting out these cookies, patience and precision is key (I can’t imagine if I would have gone with the pineapple idea). I wish I would have saved the pictures of the cutting process-my phone had died, so I took pictures on my mom’s phone and she deleted them- it was quite a lengthy. While I cut them out I was listening to either a sermon or TV show, which made the time go by quick.
Recipe via Primal Palate: Grain Free Cookies
The recipe called specifically for coconut, arrowroot (or tapioca), and chestnut flour (or blanched almond flour). I used the flour I had on hand which was:
- Almond flour
- Coconut flour
- Arrowroot flour ( I had to buy this)
Normally when I follow a recipe, I try to stick with exactly what flours they used because mixing flours is like a science and mixing the wrong ones together could potentially ruin the recipe. I would have used chestnut flour but it was hard to find at any of my local health food stores, and didn’t want to pay to ship Chestunut flour to my house and only end up using 1/4 a cup, so I went with the Almond flour I already had in the cupboard.
A few months ago I tried to alternate an egg-less pancake recipe and use coconut flour instead. Let’s just say, I WILL NEVER EVER use coconut flour as a substitute unless it specifically says it will turn out the same. We ended up having to use 8 eggs just to mix the pancake batter. I am not the hugest egg fan and with every bite I took (choked down) of those pancakes I could just take the eggyness. I learned my lesson with that, just make oat pancakes instead, they turn out way better!
Back to the popsicle recipe, along with the three flours above, I also used coconut sugar instead of maple sugar. Again, it’s what I had on hand and maple sugar is harder to find where I live. The cookie batter mixed and rolled out perfectly. It was not sticky at all, which I was worried about when making sugar cookies. Next time, I think I will not roll out the batter as thin and aim for thicker cookies, but other than that they were pretty tasty!
The Dairy-free Vanilla Buttercream Frosting on the other hand was not my favorite. It wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t mouth watering delicious. I didn’t have any Grain-Free Powdered Sugar, so I followed their recipe to make my own. I think this is where I messed up. My sugar turned out more grainy that powdery, making my icing grainy. Human error on my part, but I also think the Maple Sugar would have tasted better than coconut sugar in the sweetness department.
I also used food coloring to dye the icing. Other than that, these cookies turned out super colorful and tasted good! If I made these cookies again, I would make a few changes, like using maple sugar instead of coconut sugar and find natural food dyes to color the frosting. I also thought about finding an icing recipe with coconut milk that would take to the natural food dyes better and turn out more vibrant. More color is always better!
My poor family, I made them wait a whole day before they could eat these cookies up. I needed to take pictures first! They were suffering big time, drooling over the cookies, asking on the dot every hour when they could have some. Once I gave them the GO, they were gone within hours. We love our cookies in this family.
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