Nettle Pancakes

Springtime is almost here! Or at least here in Kamloops we’re still waiting for the last of the snow to disappear, but I know from my newsfeeds that many of you live in warmer places. Some of you are even enjoying your first nettle harvests! Since I had a few cups from last year stashed away in the freezer I thought I’d share a recipe that woulds satisfy my craving for spring flavours, and maybe give you some inspiration.

There are a few recipes that I feel are my family legacy, and pancakes is definitely one of them. Big pancakes breakfasts have such a strong association with family for me that we decided a pancake brunch was the perfect meal to serve at our wedding. This recipe is strongly based on my mother’s, but with quite a few tweaks.

{Jump to the Recipe}

You might be wondering - why nettles? Despite their sting, nettles are a fantastic spring green to forage for, and a bonus is that no one who has them on their land really wants them. When I gathered mine I secured an invite from a perplexed farmer who was more than happy for me to come hack away at the patch of nettles invading their beautiful garden soil. When you are gathering nettles make sure you wear gloves - I used rubber kitchen gloves - and long sleeves. I also used long handled kitchen tongs while picking, and when I brought them home to process. The good news is, once nettles are either dried or cooked they lose their stinging properties, so you can handle them without so much caution after that.

I find it really useful to blanch up all your nettles, and pack them into one cup portions for the freezer. I also roughly chopped mine before freezing so that they would be super easy to use in recipes. Throw in a bag in whatever recipe you would use spinach for. They work great in smoothies, curries, soups, and baking. Nettles have such a gorgeous green colour, and they hold their colour beautifully even after cooking or baking.

For these pancakes the green comes from blending the nettles in with the milk. The result looks like something that Luke Skywalker would drink, but I find it’s the easiest way to incorporate them for baking. I wanted the green to look more like food colouring than flakes of leaves, so I threw them both in my Vitamix blender, and pulverized it until it was smoothie-textured. I would think that you could probably sub out milk for another liquid if you are wanting these to be dairy free. I’ve never tried it, but I’m guessing it would be fine if a bit less rich.

The sky is the limit for toppings, but I used unsweetened vanilla whipped cream, maple syrup macerated strawberries, and candied lilac petals. I really wanted these to taste of spring, and I felt those flavours encapsulated the season for me.

I’ve also done these pancakes twice - once using grapefruit, and once using orange. I think I like the grapefruit better because it is a sort of unexpected flavour that pairs really well with the slight vegetal taste that comes through with the nettles. I was a little worried that either the taste or the colour would stop my children from eating them, but so far the “green pancakes” have been a hit for both the one-year-old and the four-year-old.

I think these have great holiday potential - a little late for your St. Patrick’s day celebrations this year, but perfect as “Grinch Pancakes” at Christmastime! I could also see using these if you wanted to make a bunch of other colours (not totally sure what to use for the other colours though) and have rainbow pancakes for Easter or Pride celebrations. Basically they are delicious, fun, and they add two cups of greens into your pancake meal so all in all it’s a total win in my books. If you try them out let me know what you thought in the comments!

Nettle Pancakes

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 cups sifted or all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup oil
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 grapefruit, zest and juice only
• 2 cups stinging nettles (blanched and frozen - can sub frozen spinach if no nettles are available)
• 2 cups milk

Takes 30 minutes, serves pancakes for a family of four.

Instructions

1. Begin by heating your griddle or nonstick frypan, or heating butter/oil in a regular frying pan. You want it to be preheated well before you pour any batter.
2. Mix dry ingredients together.
3. Thaw nettles and drain of excess water. Blend milk and nettles together to a smoothie-like consistency.
4. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and add eggs, oil, vanilla, grapefruit, and milk. Mix just to the point where the batter is well combined and there are no lumps.
5. Ladle out the pancake batter onto the pan to your desired size. Make sure you keep a good amount of space around them for ease of flipping and because these do tend to puff up a bit.
6. Your pancakes are ready to flip when you see bubbles popping up in the middle, and when the outside edges are less shiny with bubbles that pop there staying open.

Sumac Curd and Frangipane Galette des Rois for Epiphany

This year our Epiphany celebrations were pretty low-key, although I did spend a couple days making a really gorgeous galette des rois for our dessert. Even though we didn’t have a big event or anything to write that much about both the glaze for the ham and the dessert featured locally foraged sumac that I gathered in the summer it seemed appropriate to write something up about them. This is “A Forager’s Home”, after all! I am also super happy with how the galette turned out, so even though you wouldn’t be able to make it in time for Epiphany this year, I highly recommend that you try it out sometime for some different event!

My home processed sumac powder.

Sumac grows everywhere in my neighbourhood. It is native to North America, and loves a dry environment, so a lot of people here have used it in the landscaping. If you can’t find some wild, you might see some in a neighbour’s yard and they probably won’t mind sharing a few of the bright red cones with you. Just make sure you ask permission for any foraging you’re doing on private property! There are lots of tutorials online for how to process your own sumac, but I’ve found the easiest way is to dry the drupes, and then pulse them in a blender (this removes the berries from the large, very hard seeds), and then sift the red powder out from the larger pieces leftover. For this recipe you can just use the whole berry clusters submerged in water rather than going through the trouble of grinding them, or you can do what I did - pulse the water and drupes together so they will infuse to their fullest potential.

Epiphany dinner this year was ham, mashed potatoes, roasted veggies (roasted in the pan underneath the ham for maximum deliciousness), and Brussels sprouts (roasted with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and dried cranberries).

The dinner was delicious, although the cut of ham we had was a little difficult to work with. I love the quality of the pork we received from our friends’ farm, but the butcher seemed to do some interesting things to it. There was a lot of connective tissue in the middle of what was labelled a “bone in ham” (note the conspicuous lack of a bone). I’m not sure if this was just because one large ham was portioned into smaller roasts, or because it was actually boned, and that this was the result. Either way I was disappointed not to have the bone to do a split pea soup with afterward, but sometimes that’s how things go.

I am happy to report that the honey glaze I wrote about a few days ago worked perfectly on this ham. I used Jaime Oliver’s method of poaching the ham first, and then finishing it in the oven. I think it turned out fairly nicely although I’m not sure if the poaching was necessary or not. I may have left it in the oven too long afterward because some of it was a bit on the dry side. However, I am planning on using the poaching liquid to use as soup stock now since I don’t have a bone in this ham to make any with.

Sumac drupes infusing in water. Such a beautiful colour!

The main thing I wanted to share in this post was the recipe for the galette. You can use store-bought or make your own puff pastry. I recently did a workshop at Blue Bunch Farm on making laminated pastry, so I thought I’d give it a go making my own. I am really pleased with the result, although I am sure it doesn’t look terribly professional. I have to say that now that I understand the process of making puff pastry it isn’t as intimidating as it seemed, and if you’re interested in giving it a shot I’d say go for it! My pastry has a really rich colour and flavour because I used GRAIN Red Spring Wheat Sifted flour.

I started it all by infusing some sumac drupes in water overnight in the fridge (you can also use ground sumac you purchased for this infusion - just try googling a recipe for “sumac tea”, or do a bit of experimenting to get the right ratio of sumac to water). The resulting liquid was such a gorgeous colour I was immediately excited to make it into a curd for the galette. Sumac has a tangy, fruity flavour reminiscent in some ways of citrus. To turn the sumac liquid into a curd, you follow the basic process for making a lemon curd. Combine the sugar and eggs, add them into the sumac liquid in a double boiler, and cook it gently - stirring constantly - until thick. Add a few pats of unsalted butter at the very end (optional if you need to be dairy free - this is just for looks and a bit of texture, but it will still be delicious without) and you’re done! The only downside was that If found once the sumac infusion was heated it lost it’s brilliant red colour and turned sort of brownish. Because I knew I was going to be layering this with frangipane I decided to add some food colouring to make it a bit more visually appealing. I don’t love using artificial colour in my recipes, but we really do eat with our eyes first, and I wanted the two layers to be visually distinct in the finished tart, so I felt it was necessary. If you have strong feelings about it feel free to omit it. It will still taste delicious!

Sumac infusion.

Finished sumac curd.

For the frangipane, I’m sure my methods weren’t exactly orthodox, but they were effective! I just threw everything together in my Vitamix blender and pureed until it was all smooth. This may not be typical frangipane, but it was delicious, and very smooth. I was happy with the result in the end, so either copy my method, or follow something more traditional. Either will be just perfect.

For the puff pastry, I used the recipe I learned from Monika at Blue Bunch Farm during my workshop (I’ll be reviewing my experience with the workshops there in a future post, so if you want more information “watch this space”). I really like making it, and the most difficult part is just the amount of time it takes to put it together. Feel free to use store-bough if you like, but this will taste a whole lot more delicious if you try to find some that uses real butter in their recipe. I also found I had very little problem with the filling escaping my pastry this year. In my previous post about Epiphany you can see the frangipane seeping out the sides of my tart. My finished tart dough was flavourful, and very flaky. I think it has a bit more personality than one made with conventional flour as well since the GRAIN flour I used is sifted, but nothing at all like your standard bleached all purpose flour. It’s not exactly whole wheat, but there is a lot more of the whole grain in the finished product which leads to more flavour. This flour is also milled so freshly that you need to keep it in the fridge or freezer, because it will go rancid at room temperature. It’s beautiful flour and I love working with it.

Once you have your pastry and your fillings, cut in a circular shape, spread a layer of frangipane, and then cover that with a layer of sumac curd. Put the top layer of pastry over everything and crimp the edges tightly so that none of your filling escapes. Make surface level slits in a pattern you like on top, and brush with an egg wash. I also sprinkled some sugar over the top just to make it all a little more special and delicious.

Galette des rois! Put one whole almond in the filling if you want to be really traditional. Whoever finds it in their piece wins a special prize!

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Sumac Curd Frangipane Galette des Rois

Ingredients

Sumac Curd

• 1 cup sumac infused water (pulse 3-5 sumac drupes in 1 cup water in a blender and leave in the fridge overnight to infuse)
• 5 Egg Yolks
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 5 tbsp unsalted butter

Frangipane

• 1/2 cup freshly ground blanched almonds
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla

Finished Tart

• 1 recipe puff pastry
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp cream
• sugar for dusting

Takes Several Hours, serves 1 tart.

Instructions

1. To make the curd, whisk the egg yolks into the sugar, and then combine with the sumac infused water. Cook in a double boiler until mixture is thick and coats the back of a spoon. You should be able to see trace lines when you draw your spoon/whisk through while stirring. Remove from heat and stir in butter. Push through a fine mesh sieve just in case some of the egg didn’t cook perfectly.
2. Combine all the frangipane ingredients in a high powered blender or food processor, and blend on high until smooth. Alternatively whip the butter and sugar together in a mixer until thick and creamy and you can see no sugar crystals. Add the egg and emulsify, and then stir in the vanilla and ground almonds. Beat the mixture until thick, creamy, and homogenous.
3. Roll out your puff pastry according to your recipe’s instructions and cut two circles. I used an 8 inch cake tin as a pattern to trace. Spread a thick layer of frangipane, leaving a little bit uncovered around the edges. Cover that layer with a layer of sumac curd, and then cover with the other circle of pastry. Crimp edges so that no filling will escape.
4. Using a sharp knife cut some steam vents on top of the pastry, but don’t cut all the way through to the filling. Whisk the egg and tbsp of cream together and brush on top of pastry. To get a really burnished crust do this in several layers, allowing each coat to dry before adding the next. Sprinkle with sugar
5. Bake in a 425 degree Fahrenheit oven for about 5-10 minutes until the pastry has started to colour. At this point turn the temperature down to 375 degrees, and continue baking for roughly 20 more minutes, or until your pastry is obviously puffed, golden, and fully cooked.

Honey Glaze for Epiphany Ham

A view of the Christmas tree and my 30 week baby bump.

I’m not sure if you know, but we are still in the middle of what was traditionally the Christmas season! I believe today specifically is the 10th day of Christmas, and while I’m not expecting to receive ten lords-a-leaping today I’m still enjoying my Christmas tree, and soaking up a little more holiday season. It seems right to me to continue a little longer since it only just started snowing around here and the tree and other wintery decorations seem appropriate. I do have to say that our new place is so small that a small part of me is looking forward to getting the square footage back in my living room that the tree is taking up right now.

The 12 days of Christmas all lead up to Epiphany, and while that isn’t part of how my family traditionally celebrates the holidays it seemed like a really nice thing to add to our celebrations and a nice way to cap off the season.

We’ve got our Epiphany dinner set for Sunday and I’ll be making a ham. I thought I’d share the recipe I used for the glaze today. Feel free to adjust this to whatever flavours you like. I you don’t have something or don’t like a flavour go ahead and try something different (and if you do I’d love to hear about it in the comments)! Because the dinner hasn’t actually happened yet I won’t have anything in this post about cooking the actual ham, but I’ll try to remember to take a photo to update this post when I do!

Our first time celebrating Epiphany in Kamloops with some dear friends. Read all about it here.

For this glaze, I started with the sumac in my mortar and pestle. I’ll be talking more about this ingredient and where I find it in a later post, but for now you should be able to find it in specialty spice shops. I think I’ve been seen ground sumac powder in the spice section of my local Bulk Barn. Sumac berries have a hard seed inside, so I crushed them with my mortar and pestle, until the dried berry surrounding the seed was crushed and sifted that through a fine mesh sieve. Don’t discard the larger bits either - you can steep those in cold water in the fridge overnight and make a lemonade-ish drink. I’d say from one drupe of berries I wound up with about 1/2 a teaspoon of powder, although I could have been more thorough and gotten more out of it. I wasn’t too worried about that though because I’m going to be steeping the larger pieces anyway for another upcoming recipe.

After the sumac berries were broken down, I added the other whole spices and continued to crush them. After that I added fresh ginger and a clove of garlic, and continued to grind it in my mortar and pestle until the whole mixture formed a sort of paste. At this point I took it out and mixed it with local honey, nasturtium flower infused white wine vinegar, a little bit of molasses, and salted the mixture to taste. It’s a delightful mixture of tangy, sweet, and warm from all the spices and ginger.

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Honey Glaze for Epiphany Ham

Ingredients

• 1/2 tsp sumac powder
• 3-4 whole allspice berries
• 3-4 whole cloves
• 1/4 tsp multicoloured peppercorns
• 1 dried smoked chilli pepper
• 1 thumb fresh ginger
• 1 large clove garlic
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 tbsp honey
• 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1/2 tsp molasses

Takes 15 minutes, Serves enough glaze for one small ham.

Instructions

1. If you are using dried sumac berries, pound and grind them in a mortar and pestle or spice grinder until the berries are mostly powder and the hard seeds are all exposed. Sift this mixture and use only the powder for this recipe. Discard or save the larger pieces that don’t make it through the sieve.
2. Add the whole dried spices and chilli to the mortar and pestle along with the sumac powder. Continue grinding until all the pieces are a fine texture and roughly the same size.
3. Add the fresh ginger and garlic one after the other, and continue grinding the mixture together in the mortar and pestle until it all forms a paste.
4. Transfer the paste to a small bowl, and combine with the honey, vinegar, molasses, and salt to taste. Adjust all the spices as necessary - go ahead and grind more of anything that you feel is missing. This is all about adjusting to your own preference, but remember you are making a glaze, so the end result should be rather on the sweet side. You want it to caramelize on the ham in the oven while you are cooking it. If you think you might not have enough for your ham, feel free to scale up the ingredients until you have enough to cover it.
5. Follow your preferred method for roasting your ham, and add this glaze when there are about 30-60 minutes remaining to the cooking time. You want this to caramelize on the outside of the ham, but not to burn.

Reflections on 2018

In the above collage I have what Instagram deems as my top nine posts of 2018. I think they are pretty good, and they hold a lot of memories, but I wanted to do a fuller reflection on my year and share a few other photos that might not have got as much attention based on Instagram’s algorithm, but were very special to me.

I read my 2017 reflections over again before starting to write this one, and was again struck by how busy December is. I had so many ideas and plans that will have to be put off for another time, but I’m really happy with what we were able to accomplish this year.

We had a lot of little trips throughout the year, and we were so happy to be able to take a flight to visit family in Manitoba. There were so many firsts in Little Forager’s second year, and we enjoyed soaking up every minute of them - especially his first real experiences with the ocean, and his first airplane trip!

This year was the first full year the A Forager’s Home Shop was open for business, and it was really nice to have that outlet for my creativity. I really enjoy making things for others, and I have been so blown away by your support in this endeavour! I look forward to what the coming year brings!

In addition to my regular topics, I also took more of a focus on eco-friendly home decor and/or organization on a budget on the blog. There are not a lot of gardening and foraging topics to cover in my area in the winter, so last year I shared how I redid my bedroom spending only $10. I also was able to feature a few of my products in there including the now out of stock autumn forage wreath, and the golden pinecone garland (still in stock and available in gold or silver via the link to the right).

I was able to make so many beautiful wreaths for the shop this year! Some of them were absolutely one of a kind, and will not be made again, others I will probably recreate like the sagebrush wreath and twig wreaths below. The Autumn Forage Wreath (pictured above in my bedroom), and the Summer Forage Wreath (pictured below, second from the right) were made from what was available at the time, and while I might make something like them again, I won’t be able to exactly recreate them. You can shop the current wreath collection by clicking here.

Fabric Twine Basket

Handwoven Rag Rug

Fabric Twine Coasters

I was also able to work on lots of items from recycled fabric this year, and that gave me a lot of joy. I get my fabric scraps from various groups that are doing really worthy work. Some of them come from a few of the ladies that are a part of my Church’s “Sewing for Dignity” group that makes clothing, baby blankets, and feminine hygiene packs for underprivileged communities. Some also come from my Grandma who is a part of her Church’s used clothing ministry and helps sort out what is quality, and what is unusable from the various donations they get. Previously all of these bits would have just become garbage, so I am happy to give them life as useful, beautiful objects.

I also got a chance to be a vendor at the inaugural season of the Dallas Barnhartvale Farmers’ Market this summer. It was a really great opportunity to meet a lot of local people, and the support from my community was incredible. I’d be absolutely happy to do it over again next season!

This year also involved a lot of winter! It snowed straight through until April, so we made great use of our snowshoes, and skates. Kamloops is very beautiful in the snow! This year Little Forager also began what might be an undying love of skating and hockey. He’s now a diehard Blazer’s fan, and loves watching the Canucks on TV. This Christmas he got his own pair of tiny skates and is hard at work learning how to stay up by himself on them.

This year - unbeknownst to me - was my last season with my garden. I have so loved working on that project, and feeding my family with my own two hands. Balcony gardening is my future, and I am looking forward to the challenges and learning experiences that will bring. Even without the space I am used to, I will still be keeping the “grow” category of topics alive here on the blog.

2018 also featured a lot of recipes! I enjoyed writing the “meals from the pantry” series, and might pick that up again this winter if there is interest, and I also love creating and sharing the recipes I make from foraged ingredients. This is “A Forager’s Home”, after all!

Douglas-Fir Sugar Cookies

“Pop Stars”

Mixed Bean Turkey Chilli

Wild Lettuce Soup

Apple Muffins with Sourdough Starter

Roasted Vegetable Soup

Dandelion Leaf Kimchi

Floral Ice Cream

Pumpkin Apple Blender Muffins

Sourdough Doughnuts

If you have been reading this blog for the past little while you’ll know we recently had to move house. I was hoping to do some sort of “holiday home tour” this month and show off how we set up our new place, but our crazy schedule got the best of us, and all I have to show you are these few photos below.

We spent Christmas with my side of the family in my parents’ new place. This was the first year they had enough room for a full Christmas tree, and I have to say it made it feel a lot more like Christmastime knowing that my parents had their tree set up!

This photo of Little Forager sleeping in the glow of the Christmas tree is possibly a candidate for my absolute favourite photo of the year.

I’ve saved our biggest news of the year for last - although we’ve already shared it quite a bit so you might already know. This year we were so thrilled to find out that our little family would be growing by one in Spring of 2019! We are expecting a little girl to join us, and we couldn’t be more excited!

2018 was a complicated year, but filled to the brim with good things, and we can’t wait to see what 2019 has in store for us! How was your year? I’d love to hear how things were for you in the comments.

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.