Tag: Thanksgiving

Vanilla Extract

Kitchen Tip – Easy Way To Get The Cap Off A Vanilla Extract Bottle

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If you’ve ever known the struggle of baking cookies and not being able to get the little cap off of the vanilla extract bottle, this one’s for you.

Here’s the secret –

Wrap a few thin rubber bands around the cap of the vanilla extract. The rubber bands make the smooth metal of the cap easier to grip. The bottle of extract should be a breeze to open after that.

I use the rubber bands that come wrapped around vegetables like kale, or green onions, or bunches of cilantro or parsley. It’s a thrifty solution, and makes baking with vanilla extract much much easier.

This idea for this came to me when I was testing the recipe for the maple vanilla sugar cookies. For a moment I was concerned that I was not going to be able to get the cap off of the bottle of extract, and I actually thought for a second “Do I really need vanilla in this recipe?”

The answer was “Yes. You do need vanilla in maple vanilla sugar cookies.” So I had to come up with a solution pretty quickly, and here we are!

I hope that this kitchen tip helps you to never again be held back from your baking dreams by another difficult to open vanilla extract cap!

Happy Baking!

 

Maple Vanilla Icing

Maple Vanilla Icing – Refined Sugar Free, Dairy Free, Vegan

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No gingerbread cookies or sugar cookies would be complete without icing! This is a super easy and allergy friendly icing for gingerbread cookies, and sugar cookies. Perfect for decorating cookies around the holidays!

Maple Vanilla Icing

Makes about 1/4 cup

Ingredients

3 tbsp + 2 tsp maple syrup

3 tbsp sweet rice flour (I used the Koda Farms Mochiko Sweet Rice Flour)

3 tbsp + ½ tsp melted refined coconut oil (I used one from Trader Joes)

¼ tsp + 1/8 tsp vanilla extract

tiny tiny pinch of salt

Instructions

1. Stir together the maple syrup, sweet rice flour, and vanilla extract until smooth.

2. Add in the melted refined coconut oil and stir until well combined.

3. Allow the icing to sit for a minute or two until the coconut oil cools a little and it’s easier to spread or pipe onto cookies.

To get a glossy finish on the cookies, ice the cookies while the icing is still warm, and use the back of a teaspoon smooth the icing to the edges of the cookie. If the icing firms up too much to frost with, just put the icing over a double boiler to gently melt the coconut oil and it will smooth right out again.

You can also use this icing to pipe with. I just scooped the icing in to a ziploc bag, cut off a tiny bit of the corner of the bag and used it to pipe the frosting onto the cookies.

If you want to pipe with the frosting, add in about 1/4 – 1/2 tsp more of the sweet rice flour to the frosting (to get a firmer frosting) and pipe the icing while the icing is still a warm.

If the icing gets firm to pipe with, scoop it out of the bag, heat it in a double boiler again, allow to cool for a minute and then scoop the icing back in to the bag, and pipe the icing as usual.

If it does look a little rough in places, you can dip your finger in some warm water and smooth down the rough edges, or use a wet toothpick for ever more precision in cleaning up the edges of your icing.