An Almost Failed Experiment

St. Patrick's Day is my favorite holiday. Something good always seems to happen to me on St. Patty's Day, even if it's just that we get to have a quiet day and a fantastic dinner with some good friends like happened this past weekend. We, of course, had corned beef and cabbage, along with some yummy potatoes and some Irish soda bread.

I also decided to try an experiment, an experiment that at first I thought had failed. You see, when I ordered the gigantic tubs of SunButter, they came with a paper that warned about a chemical reaction that occurs between sunflower seed butter and baking soda or baking powder when you bake them. It said that the foods can turn green as a result. The food is still totally safe and it doesn't affect the taste, though. Of course, this intrigued me, and I decided to turn something green on purpose. And what better time to do that than St. Patrick's Day? So I grabbed a couple different peanut butter cookie recipes (I couldn't decide on just one), made the appropriate allergy substitutions for our family and popped them in the oven, so excited to see my green cookies. What color would they end up? A pukey moss green? A lovely sage green? Or a deep forest green? The timer went off to let me know they were done and I excitedly pulled them out. And they looked like this:

What in the world? Where are my green cookies? These just look like regular peanut butter cookies. I was pretty disappointed, but not disappointed enough to resist eating them. They turned out so yummy! I would never guess that they were SunButter and not peanut butter. I ended up giving a whole bunch away to get them out of my house because I really wanted to just sit down and eat them all. Cookies are my kryptonite, remember? Especially the really yummy ones!

The day after I made them I grabbed one for a snack, and I noticed something.

The entire cookie wasn't green, but if you broke it open, there was just a little bit of green peeking at you from the inside. And it was a really pretty green, too! Well, not what I would want to see in my cookie normally, but you know. 

If you want to bake with SunButter and don't want to see green in your cookies, the simple solution is to reduce the amount of baking soda and/or baking powder that you use by 1/3. You can see more information about this on SunButter's site, here.

So without further ado, here is my SunButter cookies recipe:

Egg and Nut Free SunButter Cookies:

1 Tbsp ground flaxseed

3 Tbsp very hot water

1 cube of butter, softened (use dairy-free margarine to make dairy free, too) 

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup SunButter

1 1/4 cup flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

(These are the amounts of baking soda and powder that turned it green, reduce by 1/3 if you don't want to see the green. I'm not going to do that for you because I suck at math. Sorry. Again, this doesn't affect the taste and is totally safe to eat.)

In a small bowl, mix ground flaxseed with the hot water and allow to sit for at least 5 minutes. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugars together until fluffy. Add SunButter and flax mixture and beat until well combined. In a separate bowl, combine all dry ingredients and then add in stages to the wet mixture. Form dough into a ball and chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 to 3 hours. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Form dough into small balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Using a fork, make the traditional crisscross pattern on each cookie. Bake for about 10 to 12 minutes. 

Yum!

Another great thing about St. Patty's Day? Awesome leftovers the next day! Marquis made this beauty by shredding some corned beef and putting it in the bottom of a ramekin and putting leftover cabbage on top of that. He then thinly sliced a potato and layered that on top with some butter and then baked it until the potatoes were crispy. There was also some kind of a mustard sauce added in there somewhere, but I don't remember what he said about that. When it was done, he inverted it onto a plate and had this delicious tower of yumminess. 

We have some beef corning in the fridge right now, so we get more corned beef later this week, and then we are going to have another St. Patty's Day celebration when CG gets here for spring break. I can't wait!

What is your favorite holiday, and why?