Devil's Food Fudge Cookies

Dairy-free/Egg-free/Nut-free

Ooowee! We like this cookie - it's fast and fabulous. If you don't have nut allergies, you can add the nuts that the original recipe (courtesy of Duncan Hines) calls for. If you're like us, avoid them like the plague. But, don't avoid this cookie. So, so good. You won't even believe it. And, they taste nothing like cake (which is a good thing).

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Ingredients

• 1 box Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Devil's Food Cake Mix
  
• 2 large eggs (we used two eggs' worth of Ener-G Egg Replacer)
  
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet dairy-free chocolate chips
  
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (we used extra chocolate chips to make up for some of the volume of the nuts, but not an additional 1/2 cup more)
  

Steps

• Preheat oven to 350. Grease two baking sheets.
  
• Combine cake mix, eggs and oil in a large bowl. Stir until thoroughly blended.
  
• Stir in chocolate chips and nuts (if you're using them). The mixture will be stiff.
  
• Shape dough into 36 1 1/4 inch balls. Place them 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets.
  
• Bake at 350 for 10 to 11 minutes. Cookies will look moist. Do not overbake.
  
• Cool 2 minutes on baking sheets, them remove to cooling racks. Cool completely and store in an airtight container.

April 2008 Update

We made these recently, and frankly were horrified by the 1/2 cup of oil that the recipe calls for. So, we pulled a foodie and - OMG - modified the recipe all by ourselves! Instead of that 1/2 cup of oil, we used 1/4 cup oil and 1/4 cup applesauce (Did you know that the single serve applesauce cups you can get at the grocery store are 1/4 cup? Now you do.) We also added one to two tablespoons of water to the mix, to get the right consistency. Snaps to us - they were awesome and a little more figure friendly.

Black and White cookie frosting

Dairy-free/Egg-free/Nut-free

Black and White cookie aficionados know that a true Black and White cookie is different from a sugar cookie with black and white frosting. However, we have not yet had luck reproducing the texture of a Black and White cookie in a confection that is safe for our kids. So we make our standard, allergy-safe Sweet as Sugar cookies in a round shape and top them with this frosting. It's a little bit of a cheat, but hey, no harm, no foul.

We found this recipe for cocoa-infused royal icing from celebrity chef extraordinaire (and fellow petite person) Sara Moulton. Our cookies certainly looked like Black and White cookies, even if they weren't an exact replica.

Ingredients

• 2 3/4 cups powdered sugar
  
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
  
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
  
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  
• 4 to 6 tablespoons water
  
• 1/4 cup cocoa
  
• One batch Sweet as Sugar Cookies

Steps

For the white:

• Stir the powdered sugar, corn syrup, lemon juice and vanilla with 2 tablespoons of the water, adding additional water 1 teaspoon at a time until the icing reaches the correct consistency.
  

For the black:

• Remove half of the white frosting to another mixing bowl. Add the cocoa and mix. 
  
• To reach the correct consistency, add water 1 teaspoon at a time.
  

For the cookie:

• After the cookies have baked and cooled, spread half of the cookie with the white frosting and half with the black. 
  
• Depending on how runny you've made your icing, you may need to outline the white half moon and outline the black half moon. Later, when this amount of icing has hardened, you can go back and fill in the blanks.
  

Cookie Concealer, aka Royal Icing

Dairy-free/Egg-free/Nut-free

Let's face it. We all look a little better with some concealer on. A little patch here, a blemish there... Evening out the surface a bit never hurt anyone. And when the cover up is as tasty as this, not too sweet, not too bland, no one really minds the fact that you're simply improving upon nature. Again, this recipe comes from the johnandkristie.com web site. Kudos to them for a yummy posting.

This recipe makes enough to cover about 2 dozen medium cookies.

Ingredients

• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
  
• 6 to 8 teaspoons soy milk - vanilla soy milk works just fine
  
• 4 teaspoons light corn syrup
  
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (omit or substitute with vanilla extract to keep this nut free - we omitted it because our soy milk has a vanilla flavor to it)
  
• Food coloring
  

Steps

• In a medium bowl, stir together confectioners' sugar and soy milk until smooth. 
  
• Beat in corn syrup and extract (if using) until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick, add more corn syrup.
  
• Add food coloring to desired intensity. 
  
• Dip cookies into icing, instead of trying to spread the icing onto the cookie, and allow to dry overnight.