Lilac Macarons with Rhubarb Ginger Buttercream

For the past few weeks my entire neighbourhood smells of lilacs. They are so abundant it seems like everyone’s yard has at least one shrub, and the public walkways are even lined with them. There are even a few feral shrubs that have self-seeded and are now growing along the highway and in some of the ditches. I usually do something each year to capture their beautiful aroma and create something sweet. In past years I’ve done flavoured sugar, and ice cream. This year it occurred to me that lilac would be a lovely macaron flavour.

Jump to the recipe.

I decided not to let the teeny issue of never having made macarons before stop me, and embarked on a few test batches. The general consensus seemed to be that while fiddly, macarons aren’t as difficult as their reputation would have you believe. I tried some basic ones with French meringue, but when I tried to make them that way with my lilac sugar it was too coarse and heavy to dissolve properly in the egg whites, so I decided to go with the Swiss meringue method, since that seemed to have a greater chance of getting everything dissolved. I bet that the Italian method would work really well here too and I might try that one next time.

The key thing I found with getting the texture right was making sure the mix was liquid enough before you finish the “macaronage” stage. My first few batches had some real problems with lumpy tops because I couldn’t get my mix to the right stage. I think I read so many times to “be careful not to overmix” that I was making the opposite problem. I also had to adjust some of the proportions and that helped me get the right consistency. Some of the recipes talked about a “honey” or “lava” consistency for the finished batter and I definitely found those images helpful. I think even this batch I just did could have been taken a little bit further, but they still ended up with fairly smooth tops.

I’m going to write this recipe as a bit of a choose-your-own-adventure where you can decide which meringue method works best for you. I will say that if you are using heavier sugar (like in this recipe) make sure you choose either Swiss or Italian or you’ll never end up with stiff peaks. I’m also going to suggest that you head on over to YouTube and watch some videos on your preferred meringue method (and a video of macaronage if you’ve never done these before) if you’re feeling a bit hesitant. There are very many different macaron methods, so which you use just depends on what you’re working with and what is most comfortable for you.

I’m not going into massive amounts of detail here with macaron technique, because I am not an expert. I think these macarons look pretty good, but there was still a bit of an issue I was having with hollow shells, so I am not the best resource when it comes to the technical side of things. I was such a fan of the flavours and overall result of these that I still wanted to share how I made them even if they weren’t technically perfect. I will share different tips and tricks that I found helpful as a beginner, though and I hope my explanations are complete enough. Please let me know in the comments if you have any questions!

The inspiration for the filling came from wanting to pair seasonal flavours together. I think that rhubarb and ginger are made for each other, and both of those pair so nicely with florals! Initially I thought I’d just fill it with a curd, but right before filling them I decided to change it up and use the curd in a buttercream. I think that was the right choice because the curd was just slightly too edgy for the lilacs as it was. The other thing I do when working with lilac is add a little bit of food dye. When you cook with lilac the delicate purples and pinks tend to shift to a sort of murky brown. I try to stay with natural colouring as much as possible when I’m cooking, but I also want my creations to be appetizing when I’m done with them too!

Lilac Macarons with Rhubarb Ginger Buttercream

Ingredients

For the Macaron Shells:

• 3 egg whites
• 90 g lilac sugar (can sub regular unflavoured sugar)
• 100 g finely ground almond flour
• 100 g icing sugar

For the Filling:

• 2 cups rhubarb
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 cup unsalted butter, plus three tablespoons
• 4 cups icing sugar
• 2 tbsp ground ginger

Instructions

For the Macaron Shells:

1. Sift together the almond flour and icing sugar for the macaron shells. Some recipes call for blitzing this mixture in a food processor and sifting again to make it even smoother, but I had no trouble using mine as is just sifting one or two times to remove the larger lumps.
2. For Swiss meringue (essential to do this or the Italian method if you are using heavy sugar like the lilac sugar) Heat a few inches of water to boiling in a pot large enough to hold the heatproof mixing bowl you are going to make your meringue in. Lightly whisk the egg whites and lilac sugar together and then put the bowl over the pot so that it is near to but not touching the boiling water. As this heats continue whisking the mixture until it starts getting very foamy. You want to make sure you’re getting all the sugar dissolved as you do this part. Don’t cook the eggs - you should be able to touch them with a finger and feel that they are warm but not too hot. At this point whisk the mixture on high speed until you reach glossy stiff peaks. One way to check if you are unsure is that if the bowl is turned upside down everything will stay put inside.
3. Fold your almond flour and icing sugar mixture into the meringue slowly. I like to do one third at a time. Continue folding until you have fully incorporated all the ingredients, and your mix has a honey-like texture. It is a little bit counterintuitive to beat so much air into the egg whites only to deflate it all at this stage, but it is necessary or you won’t be able to pipe it, or make nice smooth tops. Some recipes have you count the number of folds you do, but for me it was easier just to watch until the mix had the right texture - it slowly flowed and I could make a figure-eight with what was dripping off my spatula. You also want to gently fold in any gel food dye you are using at this point - ideally right before you are finished all your folds so you aren’t overmixing.
4. At this point preheat your oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. I know my oven runs cold, so I increased my temperature to 325 degrees.
5. Transfer the batter to a piping bag fitted with a larger circular tip. In my case I just chopped the end off a piping bag and did it with no tip because that was what I had on hand. Some of them weren’t perfect circles, but they were pretty close.
6. Pipe even circles onto a parchment or silicone lined baking tray. You can draw or print out a template if you like, but for me it was simple enough to freehand them. Pipe in a steady stream holding the bag completely vertically, and at the end give your piping bag a little twist to finish off the edge. If there is a little bit still sticking up it should settle down if your mixture was liquid enough.
7. Take your baking tray and bang it on the counter a few times to try to get rid of any air bubbles and to try to settle any irregularities you might have remaining on the surface of the shells.
8. Sprinkle a little more of the lilac sugar on the tops while the shells are still wet enough for it to stick. This is optional, but I think it looks beautiful and adds more of the lilac flavour and aroma to the finished macaron.
9. Leave the tray somewhere for about 30 minutes until the tops dry out - this is what creates the unique shape with the smooth top and frilly “feet”. Before they go in the oven the tops should be dry enough that touching them lightly with a finger leaves no impression.
10. Bake for about eight minutes, and then rotate the pan and bake for another seven. Bake times may vary with your oven, so watch them closely. You want them to be dry with no browning or caramelization.
11. After the shells have cooled put them in an airtight container in the fridge for a day or so (if you can be that patient) before filling them. They will age into an even nicer flavour, but if you are pressed for time they will still be delicious if you fill them right away.

For the Buttercream:

12. Chop rhubarb and stew with a little water on the stove. Add sugar and simmer until mixture is thick. Add egg yolks (remember to add a bit of hot to your eggs to temper them first) and cook on medium-low until thick. Don’t let this mixture boil. Press through a sieve and stir in three tablespoons unsalted butter. Allow to cool to room temperature or put in the fridge until you plan to make the buttercream.
13. Bring the rhubarb curd and the rest of the unsalted butter to room temperature and then cream them together in a stand mixer using the paddle attachment.
14. Add the powdered sugar and ground ginger (sifting out any large chunks beforehand) and continue to beat until there are no lumps. If your rhubarb for the curd was on the greener side add some gel food colouring (I did - remember that it’s better that food looks appetizing than being a stickler for absolutely no unnatural colouring!).
15. Pipe the buttercream in the centre of a macaron shell and sandwich it together with another. Ideally speaking each layer should be the same thickness as the others for a uniform and balanced look. I piped mine with the star shaped piping tip because that was all I had on hand so I tried to make it look unique. You can make yours look more traditional if you like, or experiment with whatever you think would look most beautiful!

Trail Mix Cookies featuring Bite Snacks Cricket Protein

Today I have a new recipe to share with you featuring Pure Cricket protein powder from Bite Snacks. At this point it probably looks like the only thing I ever do is make cookies, but as soon as I got my hands on the protein powder my mind instantly started thinking of some sort of trail mix or breakfast cookie type thing.

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Crickets as a food source are gaining in popularity these days. Or perhaps I should say that the countries that don’t traditionally consume insects are finally catching on to what 80% of the world already knows - insects are too nutritious to ignore! Crickets are an excellent source of protein, and many minerals that are essential to our diet. This is all the more amazing when you consider how few resources they use up when farmed for food.

I am all for supporting my local beef ranchers, but sustainable, grass-fed beef is so expensive it is best considered a luxury food item. With this in mind, crickets can help fill our need for dietary protein without being so hard on the planet. If you want some more info, I found this page that is a great source about adding insects into the human diet. Bite Snacks also has some great info on their site.

If you’re wondering what they taste like, I think you’d be pleasantly surprised! When I tasted the powder straight to see what I might want to make with it I thought of coffee, and the bitterness of dark chocolate. There was something very savoury and roasty, as well as a very sour note in there too. So unique! For these cookies I went with all of that and combined the powder with coffee, chocolate, and dried cranberries. I can’t wait to try it out in other recipes too. I’m sure it would camouflage well in a smoothie if you were interested in the health benefits of the crickets but were a bit squeamish about eating them.

Now about these cookies. You might have noticed I have posted some fairly complicated cookie recipes here (Douglas-fir Sugar Cookies, Sumac Ginger Honey Hearts). The reason for that is I’m not interested in adding to the noise of the food blogging world. I’m not a highly trained baker, so I don’t have enough technical expertise to add anything to the question of which chocolate chip cookie is the greatest, or anything like that. With that in mind I’m also not interested in sharing a mediocre recipe. What I am experienced in is working with unique flavours, so I’ve decided to stay in my own weird lane instead of adding yet another “Best _____ ever!” recipe to the internet. If that’s what interests you too, I hope you make some of my recipes! I’d love to hear from anyone who does and would absolutely welcome feedback!

These cookies have a little bit of prep required. You’ll need to make a soaker of the nuts, chia seeds, and some of the oats the day before you make your dough. The reason I wanted to soak the nuts in these was because I was hoping for the nuts to be a part of the overall texture, not a crumbly extra. I also don’t really like eating walnuts unless they are soaked, so that was another factor.

You’ll also find some discussion - especially online in paleo focused wellness blogs - about whether or not soaking nuts and seeds make them more digestible. I’m not going to pretend to have any scientific knowledge on that count. I just like the finished result in baked goods when they are soaked better than when they aren’t.

In this recipe I have some things soaked, and some not. This was an attempt to create a variety of textures in the finished cookie. You can experiment with changing the composition of what is in the soaker. In one early experiment I added quinoa, but that didn’t really work because the quinoa was too hard still after baking, and added an unpleasant bitter flavour. Feel free to adjust this recipe to your taste! I’d love to hear what great combinations you come up with!

Part of my motivation in creating this cookie was as a sort of trail snack. These are loaded with protein, and nutrients, with a little refined sugar to help with the finished texture (needed for crispy edges) and chocolate to make them seem like a treat (just like in my favourite trail mixes). The other unexpected bonus is that my preschooler loves eating these! He’s so picky and protein has been a major challenge to get him to eat. These are perfect!

You’ll notice that the yield for these will vary and that depends on how large you shape your logs of dough. I went small because it’s easier for my son to eat. Feel free to try a larger diameter, but remember to adjust your baking time accordingly.

Trail Mix Cookies with Cricket Protien

Ingredients

• 2 cups chopped, roasted nuts
• 1/2 cup chia seeds
• 1/2 cup oats
• coffee or juice for soaker
• 1 cup butter
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1 cup date puree
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp cardamom
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3 cups flour
• 1/4 cup Bite Snacks Pure Cricket Powder
• 3 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1 cup craisins
• 1 cup oats
• Optional: up to 1 cup other mix-ins like pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, or whatever else you like in your trail mix.

Takes two days, serves several dozen cookies depending on the size you make your logs.

Instructions

1. The day before you want to make the cookies, prepare the soaker. Roast the nuts (spread out on a cookie sheet, roast at 350 degrees until you just start to smell them - don’t walk away! This will only be about 10 minutes). Chop the nuts, and combine with the chia seeds, and oats in a container such as a quart sized mason jar, and cover with coffee or juice. Soak overnight in the fridge.
2. The next day, make your date paste by blending about 40 dates with a little bit of water in a food processor or high powered blender.
3. Cream butter, sugar, molasses, and date paste until light and fluffy. You’ll want to make sure that everything is well blended, and one homogenous colour. Any sugar crystals should be dissolved. This might take a few minutes longer than you are used to with other cookies.
4. Add the egg, vanilla, and spices, and continue to beat until well emulsified.
5. Add soaker mixture from the fridge.
6. Combine your baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl with three cups of flour. Add this bit by bit, with your mixer running on the lowest setting. It is possible you will need more flour depending on how much liquid your soaker contributed to the overall mix. This will be a very wet dough. Add enough flour that it is workable, but still quite tacky. Go easy here as your oats and other dry mix-ins will absorb some of the liquid and you really don’t want to make these too dry.
7. Add in craisins, chocolate chips, oats, and any other mix-ins.
8. Scoop your dough onto wax paper, and form into logs. Freeze, or refrigerate until firm. When you are ready to bake preheat your oven to 350˚F. Slice the cookies to a thickness just over 1/4 inch.
9. Lay cookies out on a baking sheet, and bake for 15-20 minutes.

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Bite Snacks provided me with the Pure Cricket powder free of charge in exchange for this recipe and review, but all my thoughts and opinions are my own.

Sumac Ginger Honey Hearts

Hello! There used to be a whole section here with me describing the amazing Flourist sifted red spring flour I use in my baking. I was trying to add something to this and some other old articles, and I’m not sure how but it all got deleted! Continue reading for the recipe, and some more details about how to find and use sumac.

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Sumac berries infusing in cold water.

Strained and completed sumac infusion.

I have to admit, that making these cookies is a bit of an involved process. This is especially true if you are foraging the sumac, and processing it yourself as I did. Here are some instructions that are very helpful if you want to go that route. If not, you can usually find dried and ground sumac at specialty spice stores, and I even saw it at my local Bulk Barn (bonus shopping here because at some locations you can bring your own container and your purchase will be zero-waste). I’m sure there are online options as well.

Sumac is a shrub that grows native in many areas of North America. You can identify it by it’s compound leaves, and large, compact berry clusters that stick straight up from the branches. The berries aren’t juicy, and they are covered by tiny hairs, and malic acid which gives it the distinct sour, almost citrus-like flavour. In most areas you’ll want to harvest the berries in July, and before any large rainfall hits as this will wash away much of the malic acid. That said, it’s not unheard of that sumac berries are still harvestable later on in the year - just rub them with your finger, and then lick it to see if your finger tastes sour (that will be the malic acid that transferred to your finger). If they still taste sour they are still good to use! The easiest way of processing them is just to bring the berry clusters home and let them dry thoroughly. Store them somewhere they won’t get dusty (I have mine from last summer crammed in a 1/2 gallon vintage mason jar) and they are ready to use whenever you need them.

Some of you may have been told that Sumac is poisonous. In the plant world there are many different common names, and sometimes poisonous and non-poisonous plants even share the same one. This is the case with sumac. Poison sumac (Toxicodendron vernix) only grows in swampy areas, whereas the sumac we are looking for (Rhus glabra, Rhus typhina, or Rhus copallina, depending on the species that is local to you) prefers dry landscapes. It also has red berries, whereas poison sumac has white. There really is no chance that you will mistake the two. One thing you will want to be cautious about, is that sumac is related to mangoes, cashews, and poison ivy. If you are especially sensitive to some of these other plants please take caution if you are trying sumac. This post on identifying sumac varieties from Eat the Weeds is an excellent resource, but please make sure you consult more than one resource before eating anything you have foraged.

As always please take care when foraging, and make sure you are 100% certain of what you are gathering and eating. The best option is learning from someone who is an expert on the local plants for your area. Use more than one resource when identifying plants that are new to you like field guides, and reputable online resources - the more specific to your location the better. Spend a lot of time examining the different features of the plant you are looking for. Never be content to identify a plant by one feature alone.

Now to explain more about making the cookies themselves! They do take some time to make, but I promise you the end result is worth it! I originally made these at Christmas time (being inspired by traditional Danish Christmas cookies like Honninghjerter, and Pebernødder) and they were the first to disappear from the cookie platters! The holidays were very busy, and even though I had originally planned to post the recipe back then, but I ran out of time. I think that turned out to be a good thing in the end though, because they are also so perfect for Valentine’s Day!

You’re going to need to start the sumac infusion ideally two days before you want to have the cookies (although you could get away with the day before, but they are better if you have a bit longer for letting the dough chill). All of the colour in these cookies is completely natural - there is no food colouring at all! The lovely pink in the glaze comes from the colour of the sumac infusion itself, and that is also where the sour flavour from the sumac shines the brightest. Since lemon or other citrus is often paired with ginger in holiday baking, I thought sumac would be a delicious pairing with the ginger and I set out working on making a ginger-forward, spice cookie that blended well with the natural sour, fruity flavour of the sumac.

The day after your sumac has infused, start making your dough. This is essentially a sugar cookie with a lot of spices that gets rolled out a little thicker than normal. You’ll also want to make sure you have time to chill the dough for a day if possible. The flavours need time to mingle together in the dough before baking. if you have to speed things up at least chill the dough for a couple hours. This will also make rolling them out easier.

Make sure you leave a fair amount of room between the cookies on the sheet because they tend to puff up a bit, and spread ever so slightly. I also put in the instructions to roll them out a bit thicker than many of these are in the photos. This is because we found out after eating them all that the thicker ones were better!

When your cookies are baked, decorating them is very fun! Prepare your sumac glaze to be a little runnier than your ginger one. You’ll be dipping the cookies into this glaze. Try to let as much excess run off back into the bowl as you can. I found that I had a lot of glaze pooling under the cookies as I let them dry on parchment paper. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing because it tasted really good to have extra glaze, but it was a little less professional looking, and the glaze didn’t go as far. If this happens to you too and you run out of glaze just make a little more and keep going. No big deal!

When the cookies are all dipped let them dry before drizzling the ginger glaze over top. This will make sure that when you sprinkle the candied ginger over top it will only stick to the white icing. I did some with candied ginger, and some without, but everyone ended up liking the ones with ginger better. If you’re a little more sensitive to the heat of ginger feel free to leave that step out - they look and taste great without it too!

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Sumac Ginger Honey Hearts

Ingredients

For the Cookies

• 3 cups flour
• 1 cup butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup light honey
• 1 large egg
• 2 tbsp sumac infusion (prepared ahead of time)
• 2 tbsp dried sumac powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp fresh ginger (grated, or very finely minced)
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp white pepper

For the Glaze and Decoration

• 3 cups icing sugar (approximate)
• 2 tbsp sumac infusion
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp milk/water
• 2 tbsp corn syrup (divided)
• 1 cup candied ginger (to be finely minced)

Takes two days, serves several dozen cookies depending on the size of the cookie cutter used.

Instructions

1. Two days before you want the finished cookies, prepare you sumac infusion. If you are using fresh/dried sumac berries, add a couple drupes worth of berries to a pint jar, and combine with 1 cup cold water. Leave in the fridge overnight. If using sumac powder you either purchased or prepared yourself, add 3 tbsp powder to one cup of cold water and leave in the fridge overnight.
2. The day before you want to bake the cookies prepare the dough. This dough really needs to be chilled overnight to let the flavours come into their own more fully before baking. If you don’t have time for this, at least chill the dough for a couple hours, but overnight will be better.
3. Cream butter, sugar, and honey together until well emulsified. You shouldn’t be able to see any sugar crystals, and the resulting mixture should be light and fluffy.
4. Add the egg, vanilla, sumac powder, 2 tbsp sumac infusion, and continue to cream the mixture until well emulsified. It should all look like one cohesive mixture with no visible clumps.
5. Add the salt, baking soda, and spices. Mix well.
6. Last of all, add the flour slowly, mixing on low. Depending on the humidity levels of the flour and your kitchen you might need to add a little more or less, so keep an eye on the dough as you add the flour and stop early, or add a little extra depending on how it looks and feels. Don’t let the dough get too dry, though. It will firm up and be easier to work with after it spends some time in the fridge, and you don’t want your finished cookies to be too floury. Aim for your dough to be fairly sticky at this point, but not overly runny.
7. Transfer to an airtight container and leave in the fridge overnight, or at a bare minimum a couple hours.
8. At this point preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Roll out the cookies to a 1 cm (or just under 1/2 inch) thickness, using a little more flour on your work surface and rolling pin to keep the dough from sticking. Cut into hearts, and continue this process until all your dough is used up. I don’t find too big of a difference after re-rolling the excess dough a few times. I also feel that ingredients - especially foraged ones - are precious, so I like to make sure I use as much of my dough as possible. The yield here will depend on the size of cookie cutter you use, but you should end up with a couple dozen cookies either way.
9. Leave some space between the cookies on the baking trays, because they do tend to puff up and spread just a little bit, but they will definitely still maintain their heart shape after all of this.
10. Bake the cookies until they are just barely beginning to brown on the edges. This will be about 15 minutes per tray, depending on how your oven runs. Mine seems to run a bit cooler than most, so I often end up needing to leave things in a little longer. You can also usually tell when the cookies are almost done because you’ll start to smell them as they bake.
11. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to completely cool before you start decorating them.
12. While waiting for the cookies to cool this is a good time to start preparing your glazes. You’ll do one in a larger amount with the sumac infusion, and one with ginger powder and vanilla.
13. Combine 2 cups icing sugar, 1 tbsp corn syrup, and sumac infusion to make your first glaze. Add the infusion slowly so that you get the right consistency. You want it to be thick enough to coat whatever is dipped in it, but runny enough that the excess will still drip off when you dip the cookies. If you overdo it, you can always add more icing sugar to thicken.
14. For your second glaze, add the remaining cup of icing sugar and corn syrup, as well as the ginger powder, vanilla extract, and milk/water (go slowly as you add this - you may not need it all). You want this glaze to be slightly thicker than the other since it will be used as a drizzle over the finished cookies.
15. Dip all the cookies in the sumac glaze first, allowing the excess to drip back into the bowl as much as possible rather than just leaving them to drip on the parchment paper or whatever you’re going to let them dry on (this just makes a tidier looking end result - if you don’t get it all don’t worry you’ll just have some of the glaze pooling underneath the cookie). I started having problems with pooling, so I started leaving the freshly dipped cookies on a cooling rack for a few minutes before transferring to parchment to continue drying.
16. Drizzle cookies with the ginger glaze, and while this is still wet sprinkle with the very finely chopped candied ginger. Allow this to dry completely before you handle the cookies.

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While the prize for the giveaway on my Instagram feed was sponsored by GRAIN, this post is not. I have been their customer for the past few months and wholeheartedly endorse their product based on my own experience. All thoughts and opinions expressed are completely my own.

Douglas-Fir Sugar Cookies

It’s beginning to look at least a little bit like Christmas over here! There isn’t all that much snow compared to the last couple years, and November was unseasonably warm. No matter what the weather is doing Christmas is on its way and I’ve got a great sugar cookie recipe to share with you!  

Douglas-fir might be a common choice for Christmas trees, but the one behind this plate of cookies is an artificial tree so don’t use this as an example if you’re trying to make a positive ID!

Where I live Douglas-fir trees are one of the dominant features in our landscape. You can see a whole bunch of them in the panorama shot below of my old backyard view. Pseudotsuga menzesii aren’t a true fir tree at all, and come in a couple varieties - one coastal, and the other inland. The latter ‘Rocky mountain Douglas-fir’ (or pseudotsuga menziesii var. glauca) is what we typically find in our area. They have a few different features, but their uses are the same. I haven’t had a chance to taste the coastal Douglas-fir, so I can’t comment on the difference, but this recipe could be made with either. The main thing I’ve observed is that the cones are slightly different shapes, and there are a few other differences in the overall growth habit of the trees.

There are very few naturally occurring coniferous trees in the BC Interior that are poisonous - and in fact all trees in the family Pinaceae which includes the Douglas-fir are completely edible. The main danger you might come across the Western yew. This is not actually a coniferous tree, but it is an evergreen and is very toxic, so make sure you know what you’re gathering. You can tell it’s yew because of the way the needles connect to the branches, and the little red “berries” called arils that grow on it. These arils themselves are technically edible, but the seed inside them, and the branches they grow on are one of the most toxic substances growing in nature. I don’t say this to scare you off foraging from trees, but rather to encourage caution and that you’ve studied enough to feel confident on your ID. Eat the Weeds has an excellent article about yew that covers much more than I have time for here, and the Provincial Government of BC has a really great online guide to common native trees in this area.

The flavoured sugar I made this spring/summer was using the green cones of the Douglas-fir. I really loved the way the sugar turned out, and was already dreaming of making Christmas cookies in the shape of Christmas trees, using actual Christmas trees as one of the ingredients! These are really easy to identify if you’re a little nervous about your tree identification skills. If the cones you’ve gathered look like my photo below you can be fairly confident that you’ve not gathered anything poisonous, but please don’t rely on my photos alone for identification purposes. Pick up a reputable field guide (like the BC Government one I linked to above), and use more than one feature as your basis for identification. Douglas-fir cones have these little bracts that stick out which makes them easy to spot. There is a legend that a little mouse tried to hide in the cones from a forest fire and got stuck there. When the cones are fully dried (like in the wreath I have in my shop) you can see how the bracts look like the hind feet and tails of little mice! This makes them really easy to identify.

This sugar cookie recipe is great using the flavoured sugar (and I’m already thinking about making some lilac or rose flavoured ones with the floral sugars I made earlier this summer too), but it would be equally as good as one done with just plain granulated sugar. I also want to go out and try to make some sugar with the mature needles of the tree and see how that tastes. I was kind of hoping that the sugar and the resulting cookies would be greener, but as you can see the outside of the cones were a very light green, and when you cut them open they are white inside, so what I ended up with was a very light coloured sugar that actually turned more yellow in time, and didn’t colour the resulting cookies at all. I also want to do a taste comparison with the mature needles because I think the taste would be stronger, and I want to know if that would be a good thing, or an overpowering thing! Most of the advice you find online about using pine/fir/spruce needles for food is that you usually gather the immature tips in the spring when they are the most tender. If I end up doing a follow up experiment I’ll definitely be posting the results either in a follow-up post, or editing this one to reflect it!

As it is, the taste of the fir cones is fairly subtle, but it comes through such a simple recipe like this in a really pleasing way. You aren’t going to raise any eyebrows if you include these on your holiday cookie platter, but they still have a little extra something in their flavour profile that sets them apart from your average sugar cookie. The flavoured sugar when it is fresh tastes almost like a Sour Patch Kids candy - acidic and almost citrusy. This is because Douglas-fir naturally contains a lot of vitamin C. I found that over the months of storage the brightness in the flavour mellows somewhat and you notice more of the resinous tree flavours that were more of a backdrop when the sugar was fresh.

Here you can really see the little flecks of Douglas-fir cones in the dough.

You don’t need anything special for this recipe, although I highly recommend GRAIN flours. They’re not paying me to say this, but I so appreciate what they are doing, and the quality of the flour they produce. I know exactly which place in Canada (Etzikom, AB) the wheat for my flour was grown in and that makes me very happy.

I also like to use a marble rolling pin (because of the weight of it, and because you can throw them in the freezer to make them really cold for rolling out pastry), and I love the shape of this vintage cookie cutter I found in an antique store even if the handle and backing part make it a little tricky to see if you are overlapping your cookies when you cut them.

I also found that chilling the dough for this recipe was really important. It helped the flavour from the sugar seep into the dough more, and also helped make it easier for rolling. It ended up being a bit on the sticky side for sugar cookies, so you’ll need to flour your rolling/cutting surface, but try not to add too much or else that’s all your cookies will taste like. Just use the bare minimum to keep things from sticking. Also please note that the temperature in the recipe below is not a typo! I used to think that you were supposed to cook sugar cookies at a hot temperature for a very short time, but my pastry chef friend showed me another way that in my opinion results in a much nicer cookie. You’ll need between 20-25ish minutes per batch in the oven, but it is so worth it in the end for the overall texture so just trust me and give it a try. You’ll also need to rotate the tray in the oven, and what I mean by that is halfway through the baking time (after 10-13 minutes) you’ll pull the tray out and turn it so that the cookies that were in the front of the oven are now in the back. This was another step that no one really taught me before, but it helps ensure the cookies are all baked evenly.

Douglas Fir Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup Douglas fir Sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 cups flour (plus more for dusting when rolling dough)

Takes 1 hour, serves 5 dozen.

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 250˚F.
2. Cream butter and sugar in mixer until butter is light and fluffy, and no granules of sugar remain. This step is particularly important for these cookies because the homemade flavoured sugars tend to be on the coarser side and you don’t want big sugar crystals in your finished cookies.
3. Add the egg and vanilla and cream until emulsified and the mixture is homogenous.
4. Sift dry ingredients together in a separate bowl, and add slowly to the egg/sugar/butter mixture.
5. Chill dough in the fridge for a minimum of two hours or up to two days. Dust counter with flour roll to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes. You can choose to re-roll the scrap dough as many times as you like but the more you do it the more flour will be incorporated and the quality of the cookies will suffer some, but not to the point of making them less delicious. I chose to use all my dough since my flavoured sugars are a bit precious and I wanted to make as many cookies as possible without wasting.
6. Place on parchment lined baking sheets in preheated 250˚F oven. Bake for 10-13 minutes, rotate cookie sheet so the cookies in the back are now in the front, and bake for another 10-13 minutes until cookies are baked through but have not begun to colour on the edges.

Gingerbread Cutout Cookies

I have a cousin who is just incredible at decorating cookies, and on a recent visit I asked her to show me a few tricks.  I also just love gingerbread cookies, and I wanted to come up with my own special version of them.  Since they turned out so well I thought I'd share them with you!

This was my favourite of the cookies I decorated.  I have a lot to learn, but it was really fun to try and I will definitely practice my royal icing skills another time!

These cookies are perfect for those of you who - like me - like a dark, spiced gingerbread cookie.  The ginger flavour is quite pronounced since there is both ground, and candied ginger in them.  The finished result is not too sweet which is perfect since I knew we were going to be icing them. If you like a sweeter cookie and are not planning on doing any icing, I would probably increase the sugar a little bit.  I used honey in my recipe instead of molasses, so they do have a bit of a different taste, and have a soft texture after baking that is quite nice.  We also added some "Black Onyx" cocoa powder from Silk Road Spice Merchant that gives them a really lovely deep chocolate undertone, but don't buy this cocoa especially unless you want to.  It will work with whatever good quality dark cocoa you have available to you.  Feel free to tweak the spices as you like.  We went lighter on the clove this time since my mom isn't as big of a fan.

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Gingerbread Cutout Cookies

Ingredients

• 3 cups Flour
• 1 cup Butter
• 3/4 cup Sugar
• 3/4 cup Dark Honey
• 1 Egg
• 2 tbsp Chai Tea (can sub water)
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 2 tsp Ground Ginger
• 1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
• 1 tsp Ground Cardamom
• 1/2 tsp Ground Clove
• 1 tsp Allspice
• 1 1/2 tbsp Dark Cocoa Powder
• 1/2 cup Finely Minced Candied Ginger

Takes approx 1 hour, yields about 3 dozen.

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Cream Butter, Honey, and Sugar in a blender until it lightens in colour and the sugar crystals are beginning to dissolve. Add egg, chai tea, and vanilla and mix until emulsified.
3. Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl, and make sure there are no lumps. Sifting is helpful here.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and when fully mixed throw in the minced ginger. Make sure it is a really fine mince since these will be rolled out quite thin.
5. Wrap dough well and refrigerate for a few hours, or preferably overnight.
6. Roll out cookies and bake for 10 - 12 minutes. The edges should be just starting to brown (it's a bit hard to tell with these dark cookies, but you'll be able to). The cookies will remain fairly soft due to the honey in the dough, but they should be firm enough that you don't feel they will fall apart.
7. When they are completely cool decorate them as you like!