C is for Cookie

One of my favorite things about homeschooling so far is the luxury of time that we're presented. We have all day and all evening, from waking up to bedtime, to make whatever choices that we want to make. I don't have to plan fun activities around a block of institutional school in the middle of the day, and now that I'm fully stay-at-home, I don't have to plan fun activities around evenings teaching and days grading. We make plenty of sacrifices for this luxury, mind you, PLENTY of sacrifices, but a luxury it does remain, and I appreciate it.

One of the most pleasant aspects of this luxury is my ability to say, when a child comes up to me and requests, for instance, that we make cookies, "Sure thing!" We have time to brainstorm what kind of cookies the child might want to make, time to dig out all our cookbooks and cooking magazines, time to search the web for good recipes. When it turns out that we have none of the ingredients required to make any of the cookie possibilities, we have time to go to the grocery store, even if it is an unscheduled visit. And since we're going to the grocery store, anyway, why don't we just write down all the ingredients that we need for all FOUR of the cookie recipes that looked the yummiest, and that way we can make all of them?

The girls and I have made three kinds of cookies so far this week.

Our chocolate bake-off cookies were inspired by the Great Cookie Bake-Off held by Journey into Unschooling. We made their cookie base, using Ener-G Egg Replacer and canola oil as substitutions, and then we, too, divided up the dough and we, too, went to town:

I believe that I laid out everything from flaxseed to jelly, cashews to coconut:

My cookies had sesame seeds, peanut butter, and chocolate chips. Willow's cookies had jelly, dried fruit, and cocoa. Sydney's cookies had a little of every single ingredient on the table:

They turned out a little on the dry and crumbly side, likely because of my vegan substitutions, but oh, my, they were delicious. Dried fruit in a chocolate cookie? Yum!

These vegan chocolate chip cookies from the Post Punk Kitchen blog were perfect. Delicious. Some of the best chocolate chip cookies ever consumed. They were so quick to make, and so nommy to eat, that I have no photos! Guess I have to make more...

The biggest hit of the parade so far, however, has been the vegan sugar cookies from John&Kristie. I mean, holy cow. I bought karo syrup on account of y'all, and it was totally worth it!

Even with no place to go and nowhere to be, these cookies were still a two-parter because they had to be refrigerated. I went ahead and left the dough in the refrigerator overnight, which may have been too long, because it was a little fiesty to roll out, and I was afraid that the whole business was just going to be too crumbly.

Never fear, however. With a little extra futzing in the transportation department, the girlies and I managed to make all the cut-outs of our dreams and get them safely transferred to the cookie sheet:

But the best fun? The icing! The recipe also includes a recipe for the hands-down BEST icing that I've ever made. Meant to be dipped--

--but also dabbled--

--it was the perfect consistency for decorating and dried nice and stiff and yummy:

And, once again, these cookies are GONE baby gone. Must be time, then for that vegan oatmeal cookie recipe...