Hello and Happy Holidays, fellow Quiet Dreamers. 💗
We are so excited to celebrate the holiday season with you all and thank you for 1K followers! We adore Elain and know that she would be in awe at how much love you all have shown for her this past year. 🥹
In celebration, please join us for a fun cookie exchange. 🍪💖👩🏻🍳
You can use the hashtag #elainscookieexchange to share your favorite holiday cookie recipe, and tag us at @elainarcheronweek, too.
We look forward to seeing and reblogging all the yummy treats, but if we miss anything, please send us an ask with a link! 😊🌸
Stay tuned for much more holiday fun from our lovely Seer! 🩷
For ✨️Elain's cookie exchange✨️ here is one of my favourites cookie recipes because it's so easy and I think even at christmas you can be fruity: lemon cookies 🍪🍋
Just as I am fruity for Elain 😜😘
Ingredients:
350g flour
110g sugar
130g butter
1 egg
a pinch of salt
1 tsp baking powder
Peel and juice of one lemon
For the frosting glaze:
90g powdered sugar
13g lemon juice
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Mix the flour and baking powder in a bowl and form a well in the middle.
Halve the lemon and squeeze out the juice.
Now add the finely chopped butter, sugar, vanilla sugar, eggs, salt and lemon juice into the well, mix all the ingredients and knead into a smooth dough.
Then wrap the dough in cling film and put it in the fridge for about 2 hours.
Preheat the to 200 °C (180 °C fan oven) and line a baking tray with baking paper.
Roll out the dough on a floured work surface not too thin, cut out circles or other shapes and place them on the prepared tray. (Or roll the dough into small balls if you're lazy or don't have a cookie cutter)
Bake the cookies in the preheated oven on the middle shelf for about 15 minutes, making sure that they do not get too dark. Then take it out, let it cool down.
For the glaze, mix the lemon juice with the powdered sugar
My mom is a baker with a specialty in cookies and cakes so I got so excited when I saw this little event! Here is a cool recipe we did recently! This technique is a bit like watercolor painting, but with frosting! I feel like Elain would bake the cookies and Feyre would help paint them. It’s such a cute activity!
Instructions below cut:
1. Bake the sugar cookies (I don’t feel like giving the recipe for that, it’s the easiest part of this lmao. Google it, ask your grandma, or buy premade if you’re lazy)
2. Prepare your royal icing. You can also use white fondant
Mix the cream of tartar and powdered sugar together. Add the egg whites, and mix by hand to moisten.
Then, with the whisk attachment, turn your mixer on low and beat for a minute. Turn the mixer up to high, and continue to beat for 2-3 minutes.
Add your vanilla, and mix to combine.
You will need two consistencies of your frosting: a thicker version for the border of the design, and a thinner version called the flood. use royal icing in outline consistency to create a border around the edge of your first cookie. Then, in the same color, use flooding consistency to quickly fill in the center of the cookie. Be careful around the edges. Tap your cookie onto your work surface a few times to help the icing settle. You can even use a toothpick or scribe tool to nudge some icing into any empty spaces or to create a crisper corner edge.
3. Wait until the frosting is completely dry to the touch. We usually let them dry overnight
4. Prepare colors for painting
Ingredients:
- food coloring of your choice (water-based is better)
- water or vanilla vodka
- paintbrushes
- a palette or bowls for your colors
- paper towels for cleaning brushes
Mix a few drops of coloring to water or vodka (my mom likes the vodka better because it gives a nicer texture)
5. And paint onto your cookie. More food coloring will make for brighter colors, and water / vodka can be used for blending!
These are the cookies me and my mom made for an event this November 🍁
Given the absolute gorgeousness of the other contributions to @elainarcheronweek's cookie exchange, I feel a bit ashamed sharing this recipe. I've been putting it off for a couple of weeks, 'cause let's face it: they are neither pretty nor decadent, nor do they require much skill.
Please remember that these cookies are intended for little palates who are not used to a lot of sugar; I usually make them without the chocolate chips, so they're more appropriate for a regular snack/energy bomb for kids who love to run themselves ragged. But 'tis the season, so the chocolate chips went in this time.
I think Elain would agree.
Nyx certainly would!
I like that these contain the veggie form of omega 3 in the chia seeds and LSA, and you can swap out the nut butter you're using to maintain regular allergen exposure to different nuts. They are also vegan, which means your kitchen pixie is unlikely to give themself salmonella when they shove their hands in the bowl to "help" and taste. Side note: if you have any tips to get a toddler to actually roll the dough into a ball instead of straight up eating it I'm all ears!
If you are my irl friend, and you happened across this post and think it looks just like the recipe I shared with you for your kid... no it doesn't. You didn't see anything here. What is a fandom anyway? I wouldn't know.
But I digress! I think this would be the perfect recipe for Elain to make with Nyx, as it's both super easy and forgiving, and - so far - the kids all love them.
Banana, Oat 'n Nut Cookies
Makes approx. 20 without the choc chips, a few more with them.
Ingredients
3x overripe bananas, mashed
½ cup pitted dates, minced OR 2 tsp sugar
1 pinch salt (optional)
2 heaped dessert spoons of nut butter (PB, almond, a mix like ABC etc)
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ cup chia seeds
½ cup rolled oats
½ cup desiccated coconut
½ cup LSA (linseed, sunflower, almond meal mix)
100g chocolate chips (optional - I used vegan, you can use whatever you prefer, or not at all)
Plain/all purpose flour as required (at least 1 cup)
Method
Preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F, I like fan forced.
Mash the bananas and mince the dates if using them; add both together (or the sugar instead) and stir in the salt, nut butter, vanilla and cinnamon.
Add chia seeds, LSA, oats and desiccated coconut, then let the mix sit for 15 mins to absorb some moisture.
Gradually add in plain flour as required, mixing until you can form firm but tacky balls. Flatten them a little on the lined baking tray if you prefer the shape.
Bake at 180C/350F for 10-12 mins, until cookies are lightly golden brown but still soft-ish to touch.
Enjoy! Or let cool and then freeze, they defrost quite quickly at room temp and don't turn awful in the process.
I am not a food blogger, so please excuse my very sad attempt at food photography. 🫣
My favorite cookie recipe ever. if you're a slut for cherry cordials like I am, this is the one. I make this every single Christmas, but also in February, and also the other ten months of the year.
Recipe calls for dried cherries (easy to find bagged in the store, usually by the nuts or in the baking aisle), but I have also done this with canned cherry pie filling too (I'll make a note at the end with alts to do this).
Thanks @elainarcheronweek for this absolutely precious idea! I am already salivating over @separatist-apologist 's cosmic brownie recipe!
Ingredients
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
3/4 cup Dutch processed cocoa
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chunks
1 cup dried cherries
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat baking mat or parchment paper. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, sea salt, and cocoa. Set aside.
With a mixer, cream butter and sugars together until smooth. Add in eggs, one at a time. Next, add in vanilla extract and mix until combined. You can do this by hand, too, but make sure it's REALLY well combined.
Gradually add flour mixture and beat until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chunks and dried cherries. Scoop the dough into rounded tablespoons and place on prepared baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. Bake cookies for 10 minutes, or until cookies are set, but still soft in the center. Don’t overbake. Remove from oven and let sit on baking sheet for 3 minutes. Move to a cooling rack and cool completely.
Note-store cookies in an airtight container for up to 4 days on the counter or you can store them in them in the freezer, in a freezer bag or container, for up to one month.
For canned cherries:
The cookies are MUCH sweeter this way, so if that's not your bag, use a little less of the granulated or brown sugar, as your preference.
They also are a lot more moist, so here are the alterations I make for canned.
I still use a cup for the canned ones, but I used a fork to squish them down/shred them up a bit. Instead of two eggs, i use one egg, then only an egg white for the second one.
Tell me if you make these so I can talk to someone outside of my family about how delicious they are!
Elain making a dozen of these and adding little love notes for Lucien!! 😍
Kuih Kapit (Love Letter Cookies)
Ingredients:
1 cup plus two tablespoons (125 grams) rice flour
3 tablespoons (25 grams) tapioca starch
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
4 large eggs
3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated sugar
3/4 cup coconut milk
How to make them:
Whisk together the eggs and sugar in a medium bowl until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is foamy. Pour in the coconut milk and whisk for about 30 seconds until well-combined.
Make a well in the dry ingredients and gradually add the coconut milk mixture. Mix well, scraping down the sides of the mixing bowl. Strain the mixture using a fine-meshed sieve to remove any lumps.
Before plugging in your pizzelle iron, use a paper towel or brush to grease the patterned mold with vegetable oil. This will help with cleaning later on. Heat it up according to manufacturer’s directions.
Once the iron is hot, pour a tablespoon of batter into each mold, and spread the batter out thinly with the back of the spoon. Close and latch the iron and cook for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes or until golden-brown.
Remove the cookies quickly and use a chopstick to roll into cigar-shaped cylinders. Move as fast as you can—the cookies will harden rapidly as they cool, and transfer the rolled cookies to a cooling rack.
Repeat until all the batter is used up. Remember to stir before you pour batter into the mold to scrape up flour that may have settled to the bottom of the bowl.