Wildflower Farm Spice Cookies

Spice cookies are amazing. They are some of my all time favorite cookies to enjoy over the Christmas season. Projects, work, cooking, etc…. Homesteads, are only as good as the people they bring together. One of my favorite things about Wildflower, is how we tend to welcome just about any friends who want to visit and experience our quixotic, closer to nature, old fashioned way of life. Homesteads have a unique and potent power to bring people together in ways they just don’t come together in more convenience based living models. When the motor of the counter top flour mill started purring and the sound of grinding became audible, the young woman we rent a spare room to while she studies, came rushing down the stairs. Where she comes from they don’t celebrate Christmas. So experiencing something uniquely American is often of great interest to her. She wanted to know what I was making and if it was for Christmas. I said, yes it was for Christmas! Some spice cookies. One of the varieties I make every year but only at Christmas time. Her eyes lit up. She asked if she could help me. I said of course. Helping is what every0one on a homestead farm does. If you come here expect you might get put to work in some way. Expect too to reap some of the rewards of that work.

Homestead farms, are more self sufficient places. Sometimes in cities sometimes in suburbs sometimes in the middle of nowhere, sometimes in a location that qualifies as several of these. Wildflower Farm, is in a very very rural suburb in the middle of nowhere. This area is the best kept secret of MA. The cost of living is a bit lower than in the big cities, and still, I am 20 minutes from one of the 2 most major cities in the state and 45 minutes on average to the other! Yet somehow where I am there are more chickens than people and we are partially surrounded by woods sitting on just about 5 acres in a town with one restaurant a couple churches a library and a general store and that is pretty much it. We don’t have a sewer system here. We don’t have town water. We did choose to remain hooked up to the electric grid as we felt we could be useful in the fight against climate change with our solar panels. We could just as easily be entirely off grid where we are. When on a homestead like this, you have what you create. You have what you grow. You have what you take care of. It is an alarming amount of work. This way of life is really not for everyone though anyone who truly wants to can live this way. So, work is constant and it brings us together. Yesterday we came together to make Christmas cookies.

For this recipe you will need:

3 bowls one for wets one for dries, small one for coarse sugar.
A spoon for scooping dough
Hands to shape dough into balls
A mixing spoon/electric mixer
Measuring spoons and cups
Cookie sheets
Oven
Timer
Parchment paper for baking or something to grease the pan

Wet Ingredients:
3/4ers cup salted butter
1 cup maple sugar or standard sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs or the equivalent of egg substitute
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I typically use the vanilla that I make myself and keep in a large jar. but store bought works fine also.)
1/3rd cup unsulfured molasses

Dry Ingredients:
4 and 1/4er cups self milled flour. For store bought that would be about 3 and a half cups flour.
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 and 1/4th teaspoons ground ginger
1 and 1/4th teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon allspice

Optional:
1/2 cup Coarse Sugar

Directions:
First mill your flour

Pre heat the oven to 350

Either cover your cookie sheets in parchment paper for baking or grab some more butter or olive oil and grease them.

Pour coarse sugar into your smallest bowl.


Measure your wet ingredients into your largest bowl. Mix them well. If you can make them thicken and get creamy.

Measure your dry ingredients into a bowl large enough to comfortably hold them. Once the wet ingredients are mixed, slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients mixing them together well.

Once the wet and dry ingredients are mixed, use a spoon to pull out a small ice cream scoop sized scoop of dough. Roll it into a ball, then roll it in the coarse sugar. Place it on your prepared cookie sheet. Put cookie sheet into the oven. Set your timer to 12-14 minutes. When the timer goes off, remove cookies from the oven and allow to sit and cool on the pan for around 5ish minutes. Enjoy, warm soft and gooey fresh from the oven. If you really want to get fancy, maybe eat them with a small side of vanilla ice cream. Another way I enjoy these cookies, is with Finnish Gloggi, which is a traditional spiced wine or for children mainly berry juice served hot with raisins and almonds as a garnish inside the cup.

I hope you all enjoy these cookies as much as we do here at Wildflower.
This is a gift from my little somewhat non traditional homestead family to yours.
Thank you for reading
Enjoy the cookies!
Amanda Of Wildflower Farm