Serendib Kitchen

Galloping herd of sparkly unicorns for your Saturday night….

Fun for Easter and spring! I don’t have a recipe for you yet, because I used pandan powder, but it didn’t give much green color (or flavor), so I ended up supplementing with food coloring. I want to try again with pandan extract, see if I get a better result so I can skip the food coloring.

But these are certainly cute nonetheless, and tasty, and Kavi was very impressed — we haven’t made crinkle cookies before, and it’s a dramatic moment when you open the oven door to see the crinkling.

So, I don’t think I’ll be working with edible paper again anytime soon — it makes a dramatic effect, but it just bugs me that the paper doesn’t taste of anything. Taste = paramount!

Also, to make these look finished, you really should pipe icing around the edge, and I have slightly shaky hands, so my icing skills are never going to be professional level. Hopefully my Patreon peeps won’t mind if these are slightly wonky.

Edible flower paper circles found on Etsy.

(For the Earth tiers, you’ll be getting either a Holi cookie or a spring flower cookie — they’re both hibiscus & vanilla cookies with royal icing, so same flavors, just very different appearance!)

I originally meant these hibiscus & vanilla sugar cookies to be Holi cookies — hence the “throwing colors” decorating approach (nice to do with kids, as a little mess is just fine), so would’ve done a set of spring colors, including yellow and green too…

…but then I had this unicorn theme going for the Patreon boxes, and unicorn colors really are more pink-blue-purple, according to all the unicorn paraphernalia my daughter had, so I decided to stick with those…

…and not entirely coincidentally, pink and blue are also the trans colors, so isn’t it nice that these were finished just in time for trans day of visibility?

Happy day, my trans friends. You are all magical, in my book — not because you’re trans, but because you are living your truth, in a world that is not always accepting of those who differ from convention.

I wish you a long and happy life filled with lots of love, acceptance, and cookies.

*****

(Recipe: Stir in a teaspoon or two of hibiscus powder into your favorite sugar cookie dough — I like Sweetopia’s –– adding a nice little tang and pale purple color . Decorate with royal icing — I use Alton Brown’s recipe — divided and colored. I slathered on base colors with a spatula, then thinned the icing a little with hot water and flicked more color on with the same spatulas.)

The Unicorn Garden treat boxes NEEDED unicorn chocolates. These particular unicorns have travelled a long way, from Sri Lanka to Ireland and finally to America. White chocolate colored with tropical hibiscus powder, then pounded hibiscus mixed in for a little extra tang, balanced with Celtic grey sea salt.

Surprising, fun flavor, I think. White chocolate is a little dull on its own, but it picks up color so well, and then you can do interesting things with inclusions.

They were a little dull on initial unmolding, but first I gilded the horns, good, and then I dusted on edible gold for the whole top, and that made the detail of their funny faces really visible. Cuteness.

Took a break from prepping this week’s lit. theory lessons on postmodernism (yes, spring break is over, alas) to assemble some of the sweets for the spring Patreon boxes (Unicorn Garden) . I’m skipping the gilding that I did in December, because naked chocolate just feels a little more appropriate for the season. If only we could all be out doing some naked gardening, hm?

So far, these confection boxes have: caramel chocolate, Sri Lankan coconut rock, ruby chocolate, dragonfruit-citrus-white pepper chocolate. I think I can squeeze in one more candy; I’m thinking a Sri Lankan sesame sweet, perhaps.

Once those are done, I start figuring out what else I can fit into a small priority mail box, for the lowest tier…several things, I think! More soon, since I’m hoping to get these out this week.

(Daffodils from the cutting garden. Spring spring springy spring!)