["Kissed By Thunder"]
- We are making cookies.
Okay, let me introduce you to my babies.
We have tie-dye butter cookie,
we have minty black and white and green,
and we have fabulous fuchsia alfajores.
But today, we are gonna
make this really cool
tie-dye butter cookie swirly situation.
It's really, really cool.
These are the covers
of the December issue.
Tie-dye's having a moment
and so I kinda wanted to
incorporate this pattern
into a cookie.
So the first thing we're gonna do
is actually make the cookie.
I have some softened butter.
I'm going to add some sugar
to that, granulated sugar,
and some kosher salt.
Alright, most decorating
cookies require a chill time
and I didn't really want a chill time.
I wanted you to spend time
decorating the cookie,
I didn't want you to have to make a cookie
and then chill it for
three hours and then cut it
and all that stuff.
We're gonna mix it, roll
it, bake it, cool it down,
and then we're gonna decorate.
You know, every year I get
invited to cookie swaps
and I know a lot of people do.
Let's face it, it's a competition, right?
So everybody's, you know, judging,
and certainly it's about taste and flavor,
but when you walk in the door
and see like a really beautiful cookie,
like it doesn't matter if
it tastes great or not,
that beautiful showstopper cookie
is what gets all the attention
and that's the one that
everyone's gonna flock to.
You know, I wanted to create cookies
that were gonna be that
powerful, that iconic,
but also easy 'cause you know,
like I want a beautiful cookie,
but I don't want to spend
hours on decorating one.
I wanted a really delicate
crumb on this cookie,
I didn't want that like really hard snap
and so I'm actually only
going to use the yolks.
It's the whites that
add a lot of structure
but also gives you that little snap.
The yolks actually give you flavor,
they give you a little
bit of the structure
and holding power,
but they also give you the fat.
We're gonna add that.
In the recipe, I call for
either vanilla extract,
which is this, or vanilla
paste, which is this.
I love vanilla paste.
You can actually see the vanilla beans
suspended in the liquid.
And you can just sub in like
a one for one vanilla paste
to vanilla extract.
You would want to make sure
that everything was well blended.
So now I'm gonna add the flour.
This is just regular all-purpose flour.
You want to see the dough pull away
from the sides of the bowl on its own
and that is my cue that
this dough is ready.
So I'm gonna roll this out on parchment.
I'm just gonna pat this out
and your dough should actually
be pretty cool at this point.
Dust a little bit on the
top just to make sure
that I'm not gonna stick.
Then just give it a little roll.
It's sticking a little bit to my pin.
If that happens to you
then just flour your pin.
And you want this to be a little less
than a quarter of an inch thick.
You want it to have a little bit of heft
so it can hold the weight of the icing
but not so thick that
it's just really heavy.
Alright, that looks pretty good and even.
Because there's so much going
on with the actual glaze,
I want the shapes to be really simple.
I kinda just raided our little cabinet.
Alright, so this is rainbow.
Do we have the unicorn?
Let's do the unicorn.
Alright, we have two unicorns.
This one looks kinda more
like a horse but whatever,
we'll do both.
It actually kinda looks
more like a dinosaur
because the horn is not going straight up.
We have the cheap
unicorns but that's fine.
They'll be cool once they're tie-dyed.
What I like to do to get these,
just peel off a little bit of the edge,
and I will collect all the scraps
and I will re-roll those.
And then I just take an offset
and if you floured your
parchment properly,
nothing should stick and
it should come right out.
Doughs that you have to chill
really bug the crap out of me
'cause you know, if I want cookies,
it's probably a cookie emergency
and I need cookies right
now, not four hours from now.
And you can actually put these
pretty close to each other
because they're not gonna spread at all.
I mean it might, you know,
move a millimeter or two,
but for the most part,
it's gonna keep it's shape.
Okay, so your scraps, you can just roll up
and just pat it, roll it, and do it again.
So these are ready to go in the oven.
So 350 degrees, middle
rack, 10 to 12 minutes.
Just make sure you watch them
because they're really
thin and they go from
nice and lightly golden
to really deep golden
very, very quickly.
If your oven is running hot,
it's gonna go a lot quicker.
If it's running low, it may
take up to 15 to 16 minutes.
Alright, it's been about 11 minutes.
Oh, these are perfect.
We've got like a nice
little golden brown edge
but the cookies are still
really blonde on the top.
So I'm just gonna let those sit.
I'm gonna look over at Morocco
and see what he's doing.
- You're not gonna be happy.
- What are you making?
- Think of it as like a tofu picadillo.
- What?
- I told you, you'd be upset.
- Wait but--
- I told you not
to look this way.
- Well okay, well at least tell me
what chilies you're using.
- Rick, I said you were gonna be upset--
- Are you using chili powder?
- Look away.
Just look away.
- Oh god.
Have I taught you nothing?
- Don't worry about it.
- Oh my god.
Alright, alright, here,
just, no, Kevin, no.
We're done.
- Censored, censored.
- Morocco no longer exists.
Tofu picadillo.
No, but really, what
chilies are you using?
- No, seriously--
- You're not using chili?
- I can't tell you, I can't tell you.
- I can't, I don't even know what to do.
Tommy, cut, I'm gonna go home, we're done.
[beep]
So when we actually started
working on the cookie recipe,
one of the things I was
pretty adamant about is
not using food color.
Like, I wanted to find
a natural food color
and so I stumbled across this brand.
This is Suncore.
These are actually all natural
dehydrated and pulverized
fruits and vegetables and berries.
And so these were my
favorite colors that I liked
and so the ones that I
used for these cookies,
but you could whatever
combination that you want.
So I'm gonna make a big batch of the glaze
and so I've got five
cups of powdered sugar.
To that, I'm going to add some milk.
I'm also adding a little salt.
You'll taste more of the milk
as a result of adding the salt in there.
I'm gonna give this a
little vigorous whisk
just to make sure that
I don't have any clumps
of the powdered sugar.
I am just going to eyeball
this and divide it into four.
So I'm gonna do four colors
and I'm gonna leave one
little batch of the white.
I would definitely start
with a teaspoon at a time.
This is butterfly pea blue.
If you have a little whisk,
that might be good as well
to just kind of like really stir it in.
Otherwise, just get in there
with your spoon and go to town.
Look at that.
[laughing]
This is actually my favorite.
I really love this pink.
This is the dragon fruit
pink, it's really intense.
Alright, and then this
red beetroot powder.
The other thing that I found is that
when you dip the cookies in the glaze,
if there is a little
patch of the powder left,
it actually makes a cool pattern.
This is the purple sweet potato.
And that's another thing that I like
about all of these powders
is that it's a really subtle flavor.
It's not gonna overpower the cookie.
At least you know that it's
natural and not synthetic.
So this is our color palette.
Oh look Gaby, here, I made you a dye.
- Not for my hair.
Oh wait, you might be able
to put this in your hair
'cause it's natural.
- Why would I do that?
Alright, we are ready to decorate.
This to me is the easiest way to do this
and also, it's very, very forgiving.
If you make a mistake,
you can actually just
wipe the glaze right off the
cookie and start over again.
I'm gonna put a little bit of
the white glaze on the plate
and then it's cool to just
kind of streak it, drop it,
pretend you're a painter.
Do a little bit of red
'cause I'm feeling saucy.
And a little blue.
Gonna push it in gently and then lift
and just let it kind of smooth itself out.
You can see there's a few pockets
of the unmixed food coloring
and that's fine too.
If you want, you can
kind of push the color
to the edge of the cookie.
But I'm actually pretty into
this little swirl pattern.
What I found is that
you can continue to use
this little pattern for two more cookies
before it just gets too swirled
and the colors will
actually start to blend
and mix together.
I'm actually pretty happy
with the way that looks.
I love this little vein of blue in there,
I think it's really cool.
If you didn't want to
use any white at all,
choose one color that's maybe
a little bit lighter and less intense,
just so you have a nice contrast between
a dark and a light.
I'm gonna do my unicorn.
Just drop it in.
Make sure that all the cookie is getting
in contact with the glaze.
And then carefully lift.
That's really cool.
I'm really into that.
I really like this technique.
It's like super easy,
you kinda don't know what's gonna happen,
and also, when you pull it up,
you get those really cool streaks.
I can guarantee you no
one is going to have
tie-dye cookies at the cookie swap,
well until they get their
issue of Bon Appetit,
and then everybody will.
I'm gonna put unicorn on the very top
'cause I like that unicorn.
And that is how you win the cookie swap.
I really like that unicorn.
I should name him.
This is Enrique.
Unicorn Michael.
- These are gorgeous, first of all.
It's the kinda cookie that
I like don't want to eat
'cause I don't want to ruin it.
- But you should just eat it.
- But I should probably
just eat it.
- Yeah, yeah.
I think I'm gonna eat it too.
- Very good.
- You ready, Morocco?
- Yep, coming in real hot in a second.
- Real hot.
I'm coming in really sweet.
What have you got for me?
- Yeah, it's for you, bud.
- Wow, awesome.
And I have an unglazed cookie.
- [gasps] Thank you.
- I know.
I know how you hate sugar.
[laughing]
I really like that cookie.
And actually, I mean, in terms
of preference for eating,
I like it just like
that without any glaze.
- Did you use paste in this?
- I did, I'm not a monster, come on.
Alright, I'm gonna taste this.
- I ate the whole thing, by the way.
- Oh god, you did.
Well, thanks for my lunch.
- Okay, yeah, you got it now.
- Actually, like this is two
of my favorite things in life,
sweet and spicy.
So thank you, Morocco,
for my little spicy lunch
and thank me for this yummy
cookie and Happy Holidays.
Make these cookies, win the cookie swap.
[rock music]
