green

This weekend, Billy and I are off to Waco for Baylor University’s Homecoming, where Billy and I both went to school. While I have been back to Waco quite a bit over the years, even since moving to Charlotte, this is the first Homecoming we have been back to in years. So it will be a lot of fun to see old friends and sorority sisters who I may not have seen in the last 10 years.

But it wouldn’t be an event if there I didn’t make cookies, right? Billy jokes that it didn’t happen if I didn’t put it on Instagram. Well, I think it doesn’t happen if I don’t make cookies!

The cookies were inspired by this print that I found on Etsy. I loved it so much I wanted to make it into a cookie! Since I am not artistic enough to hand draw it onto the cookie, I used the tracing method that I demonstrated here.

I used the same method to make the Sailor Bear cookies to keep with the watercolor theme. But I do think I like these royal icing Sailor Bears I made for the Cotton Bowl better. I made those using the royal icing transfer method, where I just trace over the image with royal icing.

To see how I made the Sailor Bear cookies, skip to minute 4:00 in the video. To see how I made the skyline cookies, skip to minute 5:27.

I’m giving away all my tricks, here. Now you know that I am actually not all that talented, I am just really good at tracing things with royal icing or a paint brush.

My favorite cookies of the entire collection are the B-A-Y-L-O-R letter cookies. Of course, I didn’t film these cookies because they were the last ones I made. After spending a few hours making the other cookies I was at a loss of what to do for the letter cookies. Should I just ice them in green and gold icing? Should I paint them? Should I try some fun new design? No, I decided to rely on an old favorite and paint a floral pattern very similar to what I did with these Pineapple cookies. Instead of using several various colors, I just used a couple shades of green and gold.

Now I just have to pray that they make it to Texas in one piece!

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With St. Patrick’s Day a couple days away, it seems appropriate to feature some green-hued foods, don’t cha think? These fluffy green pancakes were actually inspired by those pancakes the Internet gave Chelsea Clinton such a hard time about. I guess I wasn’t as disgusted as everyone else, because I thought they would be perfect for St. Patty’s Day! Also, what a good way to sneak some extra veggies into your diet?

Before you are completely turned off by spinach in your pancakes, let me assure you that they don’t taste anything like spinach. You can’t taste it at all! So you really could trick your kids into thinking you made green pancakes just for St. Patty’s Day!

These pancakes don’t just get their green color from the spinach. There is also a bit of matcha green tea powder in there to get it an extra umpf. It aslo gives these pancakes a bit of caffeine, which I am not going to turn down in the morning.

Start by blending together the spinach, egg yolk, milk, lemon juice, and butter until it resembles that green smoothie you force down ever not and then (just kidding, I love green smoothies!). Then add the flour mixture to the blender so that the blender does all the work, not you.

I would suggest adding just part of the flour mixture at a time, otherwise the blender will just get overwhelmed and you will end up stirring it yourself anyways.

You should be left with a smooth, green batter. It’s okay if there are a couple lumps though. You don’t want your pancake batter over mixed. Then pour that batter into a bowl with some whipped up egg whites.

Oh yeah, this is the key to light and fluffy pancakes. Separate your egg white from the egg yolk and whip it up until light and airy. Then fold the batter into the egg whites so you have a light and airy batter!

Spoon about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of batter on to your cooking surface of choice. I prefer our electric griddle because it holds a constant, steady temperature ensuring I don’t under or overcook my pancakes.

Then just stack up your pretty green pancakes and top them with your favorite pancake toppings.

I prefer butter (and lots of it) and some maple syrup. Sure that sort of negates the “healthiness” of the spinach and whole wheat flour. But the way I see it, I would be dousing my pancakes in butter and syrup no matter what. So at least this way I am getting in a serving of veggies!

If the Chelsea Clinton green pancakes turned you off from adding spinach to your pancake batter, I hope I have helped sway you the other way. Because it’s always a good idea to trick your kids (or your husband…or yourself!) into eating more veggies.

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Baylor Homecoming Cookies

Fluffy Green Pancakes