February, as we all know, is the month for love, with both Valentines day and Lupercalia, so I decided to find an appropriate magical recipe. Love is a tricky thing, so I wanted something that you could either share with your loved one, eat yourself to bring love into your life, or as part of a self-care exercise to love yourself.
Naturally, this being for a Kitchen Witch Blog, I ended up making cookies with a magical touch. The beauty of cookies, is that they can be adapted for any intent by just changing the herbs and spices.
I made my cookies with an easy vegan recipe below, but any basic sugar cookie recipe will do. This recipe made 12 heart shaped cookies, but I used a large cookie cutter.
112g (4oz) vegan spread
150g (5oz) sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
250g (9oz) plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp non-dairy milk
Preheat oven 180C
Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl and add the vanilla extract. In a separate bowl sift the flour, cinnamon and Bicarb soda.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet gradually, mixing in by hand as you go until its all mixed together and is crumbly. Add the non-dairy milk and mix in to create a big ball of dough. If your mixture is too crumbly add a little extra milk a drop at a time until it comes together.
Flour your hands and your work surface and transfer the dough to your work surface.
Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough to between 1/4-1/2 inch thick. Dip your cookie cutter in flour and cut out cookies. If you don't want shapes pinch off small pieces of dough, roll into small balls and press gently down with the bottom of a glass. Transfer them to a parchment lined baking tray. Form the remaining dough into another ball, roll back out and repeat until you've used it all up.
Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and leave to cool on the baking tray. Once cool you can decorate.
I used the recipe below for vegan icing, but use your favourite recipe if you prefer.
250g (9oz) Icing (confectioner) sugar
30g (1oz) vegan spread
2 tbsp non-dairy milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
A couple of drops of pink vegan food colouring
To prepare the icing add the icing sugar, vanilla and milk to a mixing bowl. Use an electric mixer on low speed to mix in. Add the food colouring and mix in.
I topped my cookies with dried rose petals and dried lavender.
Magical Properties:
Flour (wheat) - Prosperity, abundance, rebirth,wishes Sugar - Love, protection, making life sweet Vanilla - Love, spirituality, sex magic, passion, creativity Rose - Love, psychic powers, healing, luck, protection, peace, knowledge, dreams, friendship, death and rebirth, abundance Lavender - Love, happiness, peace, protection, sleep, clarity, faeries, strength.