Thursday, April 19, 2012

Happy Birthday Sapna!

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Strawberries on hold for today! Very Important post :)

My besty had another birthday without me present on Tuesday.  If I could swing it, I’d have been there but alas I’m in North Carolina and she’s in Toronto, Ontario.  This is not the first post about Sapna.  I also made her and her wonderful hubby their engagement quilt and since I couldn’t actually make her wedding cake because they went to Mexico, I made one virtually with her favourite flowers; peonies and roses.

For her birthday this year, I decided to make her some cookies. I never had the opportunity to make her cookies with her store’s logo on them because she closed it last year and well, I wasn’t really doing lots of nice looking cookies back then.

Liloo at Home was her awesome little store that sold Indian textiles and clothing plus so much more amazing stuff.  The name of the store is her mother’s name, another pretty awesome lady.  She had a really funky logo and I thought it would be so much fun to make it into a cookie.  Last year she decided after five years to close her store.  It was a sad day, but I’m still so proud of her for even starting a small business in this economy.

So Sapna, I made you these cookies and I hope you liked them! 

I made two types of cookies for her.  Regular and Gluten Free (GF).  I made her big and little ones  of my original recipe so she could sneak a taste, but I also found a gluten-free recipe for her too!  I wouldn’t want the birthday girl to go without. 

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My sugar cookie recipe you can get here.

Gluten Free Sugar Cookies

  • 2 1/2 cups of your favorite gluten-free flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons of xanthan gum
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 cup unsalted butter
  • 1 egg
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla (make sure it’s gluten-free)
  1. Cream butter with sugar.  Beat in egg and vanilla.
  2. Mix in flour, baking powder and xanthan gum.
  3. Knead and then wrap in plastic. 
  4. Place into fridge and chill for 1 hour. Make sure the dough is cold, as it spreads when baked.
  5. Roll out and cut and bake at 400 for 10 minutes.
  6. Cool and decorate!

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The GF cookies tasted really good.  The texture was slightly different but after the second bite it was barely noticeable and you could serve them interspersed with regular sugar cookies and I bet no one would tell the difference.  It’s always good to have a GF option, especially when your best friend is a GF person! (*side note: my girls couldn’t stop eating the dough, which is always a good sign!)

Happy Birthday my friend, I hope you had an awesome day and will have an even better year!

Thanks for looking!

 

To see the double wedding ring quilt, click here

To see the peony and rose wedding cake, click here