Soft Baked Vegan Triple Vanilla Cookies A kitchen creation of Wildflower Farm
Wildflower Triple Vanilla cookies
Our most recent set of guests have left us… And we will miss them. They were so interesting to talk to. I wish they had stuck around longer. I would have loved to learn a bit about art history. But that is the nature of a B&B, people pass through on their own time. And I am here to entertain a little if I am lucky or just facilitate their stay here on some very hidden background level, or anywhere in between. It depends on the guests. These guests were a lot of fun. We have been lucky that so many of our guests have been absolutely charming and easy and fun to have around for a few days. It’s dark outside, the clouds are up there in the umbra… It has recently rained a lot… It would be so lovely to have some clear skies. We could go outside then with the telescope, snack like we always do at a dark picnic, with something nice and hot to drink, and whatever cookies I might have fresh on hand. Today, that would be Vegan Wildflower Farm Soft Triple Vanilla Cookies.
You will need a bowl and mixing spoon, all the ingredients, an oven set to 350, a small timer, 2 – 3 cookie sheets, and some baking paper to cover the baking sheet.
The ingredients
2 and 3/4ths cups all purpose flour
1 liberal teaspoon baking soda
1/2 liberal teaspoon baking powder
1 cup earth balance butter
1 cup + 2 tablespoons vanilla sugar
2 table spoons maple sugar
The egg substitute equivalent for 1 egg. (so for me 1 table spoon egg substitute powder and 2 table spoons of water. Check your package for the proper measurement for the substitute you are working with.)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract.
2 rds cup vanilla sugar for rolling cookies just before baking
You will note there is no salt in this recipe. The reason being, is because earth balance contains salt. Adding additional salt would be a bit too much salt.
Start with the butter at room temperature in a large bowl. Cream it, then add in the vanilla sugar as well as the maple, and the egg subtitute, followed by the vanilla extract. Mix and cream together well. In another bowl, mix the dry ingredients. Gradually add the dry to the wet as you mix it in. Mix it well, then start rolling the dough into little balls each one the size of a slightly large tablespoon. Roll each one in the 2/3rds cup of vanilla sugar till they have been fully sugar dusted. Space them several inches apart on the pan, and put in the oven. Bake for about 8 minutes. Remove them and allow the cookies to cool. Dig in.
It makes the house smell glorious…. And it tastes amazingly vanilla-y.
What is vanilla sugar? You can sometimes find it at craft fairs, and high end kind of gifty food stores and stuff. What it is, is a couple of dehydrated to the point of brittle vanilla beans and a cup of standard sugar. You break the brittle beans into pieces after you dehydrate them, and you put them in a coffee grinder. Grind them into powder. In a small bowl mix the vanilla powder with 1 cup sugar. Typically they say 1 bean per 1 cup. I like doing 2 beans per cup myself, but depends how strong you like your vanilla. In addition to these cookies vanilla sugar would be great on the tops of muffins, it would do wonderfully on ice cream, or in coffee for just a few more things you can do with it. It makes great christmas gifts also a small package of this unbelievably delightful artisan sugar that you can make right in your own kitchen.
We love to sit outside with the telescope with sparks from deliciousness going off in our mouths, watching the sky on nights like tonight when we are luckier than tonight and there are no clouds. Instead, tonight we will stay in, have these with maybe chocolate ice cream for desert.
Later, I will keep several in the bread box for a few days and the rest I will put away in the freezer and bring them out in small collections till they are gone. This is a homestead, wasting is just not something we like to do when it is easy to avoid.
Now, I am off for chocolate ice cream triple vanilla cookies, in front of the first wood stove fire of the season if I am not mistaken… The nights get colder and colder lately and they are just getting started in that direction. I am looking forward to some nice blizzards and a lot of cozy. There really is nothing like warm triple vanilla cookies to kick off the cold season. I hope the clouds will pass soon and before too long we can take some of these out to eat while we watch the sky at night… It has been hard this year with all the rain and how over cast it has been. But every new day, is another opportunity so we will see what tomorrow gives us.
Thank you for reading
Enjoy the cookies
Amanda of Wildflower Farm
Tags: ag, agriculture, agro, alternative lifestyle, B&B, baking, cookie recipe, cookies, cooking, DIY triple vanilla soft bake vegan cookies, farm, farm blog, farm wife, farm wife blog, farmer, farming, Farming New England, farmstead, food, foodie, homestead, homestead blog, homestead farm, homestead vanilla cookies, homestead wife, homestead wife blog, homesteader, homesteading, homesteading New England, housewife, housewife blog, inn keeper, inn keeper's blog, kitchen, new england farming, new england homesteading, old fashioned housewife, old fashioned living, recipes, secular homesteading, self sufficiency, self sufficiency homesteading, self sufficiency living, self sufficient, simple living, simpler way of life, travel, triple vanilla cookies, vanilla cookies, vegan baking, vegan baking recipe, vegan cookie recipe, vegan cookies, vegan triple vanilla, vegan vanilla cookies, wildflower farm, Wildflower Farm vanilla cookies
Wildflower Farm, is a small New England homestead, B&B and AirBnB, in the Baystate. We came out here 7 years ago, when we returned from the better part of 10 years as peripatetic aristotelian nomads, for my husband's post docs. Upon our return, we had a plan. We had a lovely home. Everything was so clear. Then, I got sick. Things I used to eat all the time during our travels elsewhere in the world and even here before I left almost 10 years earlier made me ill. It took a couple trips to the ER and a trip to specialist... It became clear, something had changed in the way food is processed in this country since last I lived here. Some off label things was inevitably going to be my demise.
My husband and I looked around to see the clear path we were on, had exploded in front of us. We decided we had to create a new path for ourselves. We put children on hold. We found a small piece of land with a house we loved in a rural suburb in a right to farm area. I began researching how to do it ourselves. Grow it ourselves, make it ourselves, survive on our own as much as possible. We bought the property, and began plotting a new course. One that didn't involve off label chemicals. Closer to nature, with a lot more DIY, gardens, and animals for the products they provide. We created a life we loved though it hasn't always been easy and has of course come with compromise with each other, and even with ourselves.
Our family thought we had lost our minds. What were we doing leaving the city? We had no idea how hard this would be. They thought we would be back in 6 months. That was over 7 years ago, now. We have been making it work. They were not wrong, it isn't easy. But has anything worth doing ever been easy? And for us, avoiding as much store bought food as possible was simply necessary so I could live given how sick I was getting.
Then Covid hit.... We were lucky to have this place. It has allowed us a lot less need for public use territories which has kept us a lot safer and spared us much of the risk others face daily. This place, has given us a privilege through this of great meaning to us. To be of use in a difficult time. We have been able to help friends family and even strangers in need when things couldn't be found on store shelves. Or money was tight due to not working, rent being due and a child at home, or some other draining situation. We are so very grateful to have been able to not be helpless like so much of society through this miserable time. Our families, got used to it some time ago, us being out here. They made peace with it the day there was no bread and they had to ask me for some. Or when fresh vegies were rotten due to supply chain issues but they could find plenty in my garden.
Wildflower Farm, was a place I dreamed of. One of those sweet pastoral dreams a city dweller grows up knowing will never come true, that became unavoidable when I became ill. I never expected to get to do this. I never thought I had what it takes to make this work. I have learned pacing myself is important, compromise is critical, hard work never ends, burn out is real so breaks are just a necessary evil.
We are not fully self sufficient, but we work hard in that direction as we create a new path through life for ourselves, always reaching to do even more ourselves and to get closer to the ideal we envision. We are however far more self sufficient than many in this world. 7 years in, we continue to learn and grow in this homesteading lifestyle. We welcome comments and advice and ideas and questions.
We welcome visitors from all over to our home with strict covid policies in place. We spend our time learning to live all over again in a more environmental and sustainable way though even there we are far from perfect always learning and growing doing better as we know better.
This little homestead farm is a magical place named for the New England wildflowers that grow all around. A place where a physicist, watches the night sky on clear nights with the aide of mirror and glass, and a woman, works endlessly in the gardens, the kitchen, and a variety of projects to create and to keep a very unique life style running and functioning. Wildflower Farm, has become so much more than simply a piece of land we can grow a few vegetables on. The longer I spend here, the more alive the land seems, the more I learn about it's function and the more meaning it has. My place in the universe and the next steps on our new path become ever more clear.
We welcome you on this journey with us.
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