PLANETOMANIA COOKIES

"Amma ! Jupiter has stripes! "

 Abhinav was looking at the Sky Maps app on my  iPhone. It was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen ....... planets that were red, blue, the flaming Sun and our moon. 

Soon we were obsessing over all the planets going round and round the Sun....Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, the blue Neptune.

I was planning my second cookie sale at that time and quickly needed to come up with four new cookies ideas for the sale ... not one to be a repeat from last time. One idea was to serve up a cookie for kids, designed by a kid. Told Abhinav about it and I 'I sweared' to make whatever he drew, for a cookie. 

              

He got to work on it immediately with his pastel colours and in five minutes the new cookie design was ready!

I loved it. He'd drawn out the solar system for a cookie idea, in five colours.I tried to make copies of his design,on my drawing book, in new colours. But his colour combo was really cool. I had to go with it. 

The sketch and the final cookie

The cookie recipe was simple. The mixing of colours to match Abhinav 's sketch was the tough part.

We worked together on our test batch of cookie dough. I mixed colours gradually, with Abhinav standing on a stool, checking against colours on his sketch. Once he certified a colour as a good match, I'd move on to mix the next colour. 

We rolled out squares in six different colours and based on the order of colours Abhinav had used in his sketch, arranged them one on top of the other. I tightly rolled all the layers together into one large cylinder, which went into the fridge to harden up. An hour later we pulled it out and cut out rounds and pressed and thinned these further in odd shapes to make palm sized giant cookies. Once baked… we got the brightest ,wildest cookie ever- PLANETOMANIA!

Child enjoying a PLANETOMANIA at the sale

PLANETOMANIA COOKIE

Makes 12 palm sized cookies.

THE SUGAR COOKIE RECIPE

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups all-purpose flour,

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

1 cup powdered sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Paste colours 

DIRECTIONS:

Mix all ingredients together( except the paste colours) to make a dough

Add more flour if dough is sticky 

Divide into 5 parts

Mix each paste colour in few drops of milk

Add to dough and mix

Mix well for even colour

Roll into 1/2” thick squares

Layer one on top of the other

Roll tightly into a cylinder 

Refrigerate for one hour

Slice and flatten

Bake at 180° c for 12- 15 mins

COOKIE TIP :

Cookies with color look faded if you bake for more than 15 mins.

Take care, watch them .. so that they dont burn or brown.

Our story

Our story begins here….Everything starts out as a project for Abhinav and me to keep happy over the weekend......Drawing, baking, salt dough projects…da da da.

The chance to put up a small cookie stall at the apartment on Republic Day was what turned us into bakers overnight.

Abhinav was 3 at the time. He always looks bright-eyed and excited about every project I cook up and enthusiastically agrees to partner with me. We dreamt about it and discussed this for a whole week. I realized that both of us had a taste for the dramatic. Things had to have that ‘wow’ factor. They had to be special to want to make it. Basics bore us. So don’t expect to find a chocolate chip cookie or the oatmeal cookie on our page. 

We designed cookies to cater to all kinds of people who might come to our sale.

We tried, test baked and finalized on the cookies we were to present. Abhinav’s dough rolling skills, mastered at Playschool came handy. He would roll out and cut and I, bake.

A hectic long weekend of baking large batches of cookies. We actually did it. 

Clear plastic wrap packaging with a tie- up prettied up the cookies for sale.

Never done something like this before ….. what would people think of things, would they buy our cookies?

Three sleepless, anxious nights later ,we were at the sale looking all cheerful and excited to show our bakes.

Kids gathered to look at the goodies …..soon the parents came … it was most exciting to watch men buy pink heart cookies for their wives and daughters. Our cookies sold out in two hours!

Abhinav and I both feel confident to bake today, a year down the lane. We had a successful sale at this year’s Republic Day event as well. We intend to  share our best produce  and our excitement with all food enthusiasts and hope to inspire you to create your own wonders!