Sugar Cookies with Cairo

On Friday night, we took a break from our regular weekend routine and hosted Cairo, a 3-year old vegan toddler that is full of energy! This gave his parents a chance to have a night off on their own. Cairo requested that we make vegan sugar cookies earlier in the week, and who am I to say no to baking?

First step... dough smashing! And of course getting flour all over the counter and on our faces (on Cairo's cheek and my nose). I pre-made the dough using the recipe from Katie at Troubled Tofu, which I highly recommend if you like soft sugar cookies! Scroll to the end to see the crossposted recipe.

After dough "smashing" we rolled out the dough... Check out the cute "Junior Baker" apron he has on!
Next, we cut out the cookies into different shapes. Cairo was especially excited about the dinosaur cookie cutters (triceratops, stegosaurus, and tyrannosaurus rex), he loves dinosaurs.
While the cookies were baking in the oven, we built a skyscraper made out of Linkin Logs. I remember playing with these as a kid, but don't think I was ever able to build anything that tall!
Once the cookies were cooled and the icing was made, Cairo got right to icing the cookies (like the stegosaurus shown below).
Then there was the question of sprinkles. Too many choices. But once Cairo made a decision on what color to use, he was committed. John tried to coax him into adding more sprinkles, but Cairo clearly had a vision. A vegan master baker in the making!
Check out the care he used in applying the sprinkles! He decorated a cookie for his mom, a cookies for his dad, a cookie for John, a cookie for me, and a few cookies for himself (smart kid!).
The finished plate of iced vanilla sugar cookies... my favorite (besides the blue T-rex that Cairo decorated for me) was Cairo's rainbow snowflake on the bottom left. He kept dipping the spatula into the different color icings saying "a little of this and a little of this and a little of this...." So cute!

Whew! Three hours with a three year old really wore us out, but Cairo was such a happy, fun, loving kid that it was worth it. As we were sitting on the couch watching a video, there was a dragon eating spaghetti and meatballs. John asked Cairo if he ever ate meatballs. His reply? "We eat spaghetti with veggie meatballs".



NoWhey's Sugar Cookies

2/3 cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
egg replacer = to 1 egg (use ener-g, not flax)
4 teaspoons soymilk (might need to add more in later)
2 cups sifted all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
Thoroughly cream shortening, sugar and vanilla in a mixer until a bit fluffy, making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl every once in a while. Add egg replacer; beat until even more light and fluffy. Stir in soymilk until well combined. In a separate bowl, sift together dry ingredients and then blend into creamed mixture. It will seem a little dry at first, but keep blending and it should be moist enough to hold together well. If it is extremely crumbly, add about a teaspoon more of milk. Divide dough in half, wrapping each half in wax paper. Chill at least 1 hour.
On lightly floured surface, roll to 1/8 inch thickness (one half at a time, while still chilling other half). The thicker it is, the softer the cookie though. Cut in desired shapes. Bake on greased cookie sheet about half an inch apart at 375 for 5-7 minutes. Cool slightly, remove from pan. Cool all the way before frosting. Makes 2 dozen (depending on cookie cutters).