Soooo....it's almost Halloween and the 2nd grade is studying Ancient Egypt...where everyone knows mummy's were all the rage. Can you smell that class mummy party brewing??
As the parent of a child who usually can't eat what the rest of her classmates are eating, I like to supply food for class parties, so my daughter can have what everyone else is having and doesn't feel left-out (or singled-out) because I had to bring her something different. It doesn't always work out, but I'm not ashamed to admit that when it does...I feel like a rock star mom.
Even though I'm not an "allergy" mom, per se, I love that Ryan understands what I'm going through...
I know that my daughter will like whatever I make, but I always worry that the rest of the class will see me coming with my sugar-free, grain-free, mostly tan "treats" and run the other way...LOL. So, I try really hard to step up my game in terms of presentation.
As usual, I scoured Pinterest for cute mummy snack ideas and shared them with my daughter. She, of course, wanted cookies. Most of the mummy cookies I found were made with lots of white icing piped on to look like bandages. I've yet to master SCD frosting or icing of any kind, so I didn't want to go there. I felt that my best chance for success was probably to manipulate the dough somehow.
Ultimately, I was inspired by the look of these mummy cookies from Life Made Sweet, but used Danielle Walker's Paleo Sugar Cookie recipe from Against All Grain as the base.
To make the cookies, I made two batches of sugar cookie dough. I rolled out the first batch and cut out little circles for the bases. Then, I slathered homemade cherry butter on each circle. After that, I rolled out the 2nd batch and cut it into thin strips which I layered across each cookie to look like the mummy bandages...trimming the edges of each as I went. It took forever. I noticed after the fact, that the smart blogger from Life Made Sweet, rolled out her dough, applied her filling all at once and then did long strips over the whole thing before cutting out each cookie. Yup. That would have been much easier.
After the cookies baked, I added pumpkin seeds for eyes, by cutting the seeds in half and sticking them cut-side up into the still warm cherry butter. Again, this took forever...LOL. The seeds kept shattering and breaking. I tried pistachios too, but didn't care for the taste. I eventually managed to cut enough seeds in half to make it work and I thought they looked pretty cute.
As it turned out, another mom (new to the school and unfamiliar with our diet) wanted to help with snacks, so I explained briefly about my daughter's dietary restrictions, not wanting to overwhelm her with all of the things she can't have, and tried to coordinate with her...I thought she was just planning to make a cookie, but she ended up bringing gooey chocolate-y things, popcorn hands with candy corn finger nails and mummy wrapped juice drinks of some kind. I was so annoyed. Scratch that, honestly, I wanted to cry. My daughter couldn't eat any of it. And no one wanted my mummy cookies when there was all that other stuff. Who could blame them? But what can you do? My daughter got to have as many of those mummy cookies as she wanted (although I was proud when she told me she stopped at three because she felt that was plenty.) There were even enough cookies left over that she was allowed to deliver the extras to all the teachers, which she loves to do. And I get a sob story for my blog. So it's all good, right?? ;)
I still think the cookies are cute and if you want to make them, follow the link above for the sugar cookie recipe and check out my recipe notes below for some extra tips:
- I didn't think the cookie dough was sweet enough...might have been better with frosting all over it, but as a cookie with just a thin schmear of fruit butter in the middle, it needed to be sweeter. If I ever try this again, I'll add more honey. If you already have a favorite rolled cookie recipe, by all means use it.
- The recipe also tells you to sprinkle some coconut powder over the dough after you roll it so the cookie cutter won't stick. I wasn't a fan of the dusty texture it left on the cookies after they were baked, so I might skip that step next time and try just wetting the edge of my cutter to keep it from sticking.
- Also, without meaning to, I made my two batches of cookie dough slightly differently and one turned out way better than the other. For the first one, I had forgotten to add the coconut oil until after I had already mixed everything else, so I just sort of worked it into the dough and it turned out pliable and easy to work with. For the second batch, I mixed everything together at the same time and the result was much drier and more crumbly. It was a lot harder to make the strips with the dough from the second batch. So, for better dough, try mixing everything except the oil into a dough ball and then work in the oil last.
- If you don't have homemade cherry butter on hand, you could use any SCD-legal jam or fruit butter, or even a nut butter if you wanted. It's your cookie. ;)
Hope that helps you in your search for a fun Halloween treat that you can make for your kiddos. I'd love to hear what you come up with if you decide to make some, so feel free to leave your comments below, share on my Facebook page or tag your photos #FightingFlare on Instagram. Thanks for stopping by and good luck with those school parties this week! XOXO, Cindi
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Gratuitous Ryan Gossling pic via Pinterest