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Novasutras Cookies for Celebrations

Sharing food is one of the key ways that humans build communities. Our propensity to share food, even with complete strangers, is something that very few other species do.

One delicious and decorative option for food you can share at Equinox celebrations or other gatherings with your local Novasutras community is to make some sugar cookies decorated with the Novasutras symbol.
make sugar cookie dough
I used this recipe – Sugar Cookie Recipe | The Bearfoot Baker – just a half-batch seemed like a great plenty — 42 cookies! I chose organic ingredients wherever I could (some bought in bulk from the local natural foods store), and selected the most humanely-raised animal products I could afford. (I tend to consider the prices on factory-farmed animal products and non-organically grown foods as artificially-reduced unfair prices, and the prices on organic and humanely-raised foods as reflective of the true cost. The question isn’t ‘why is the stuff that accords with agaya and ubuntu more expensive?’, it’s ‘what horrible decisions were necessary to make the bad stuff so cheap?’)

dough ingredients

cylinder, chill, cut
Instead of rolling out and cutting shapes, I just chilled the dough as a log-shape about 5cm (2in) diameter, then sliced off nice circles about 0.5cm thick (midway between 1/8 – 1/4 inch).

slicing dough

bake and cool completely

Per the instructions. Seriously, don’t rush this, or your decoration will go all melty.

make chocolate outlines
To decorate them I outlined the symbol with dark chocolate (per https://food52.com/blog/9273-a-better-cookie-icing). Break up good, dark chocolate. Choose a chocolate bar that you would eat anyway – I used about half of the 85g (3oz) ‘chimpanzee’ bar from Endangered Species Chocolates: 72% cocoa = 100% yummy! Put chocolate pieces into a small bag. Melt the chocolate fully by placing the bag in warm water.

melting chocolate

Cut a very small hole in one corner of the bag. Pipette the chocolate to draw a Novasutras logo on each cookie. I followed the logo meditation practice, hoping to imbue my creations with extra wishes of agaya and ubuntu for all those who will eat them.

chocolate icing

Cool until the chocolate is fully set, and does not smudge if you bump it with a finger. Don’t think about stacking them, or adding icing, until they’re really set.

make icing, paint in colors

The cookies are quite lovely and delicious with just the chocolate outlines, but if you want to go all out, you can also make colorful icings (such as Sugar Cookie Icing Recipe – Allrecipes.com) and fill them in. Again, this is a great time to infuse your work with wishes for agaya and ubuntu.

iced cookies

I put these in a cold oven overnight to make sure they were fully set before I tried to stack them into containers for carrying.

All in all, my cookie-creation adventure took several hours (a couple of days, really, since I chilled the dough overnight, and then let the icing set over the next night). The cookie recipe itself is quick, but both the chocolate and the colored icing decorating work takes a lot of time. Consider it bonus meditation time, and it’s well worth it. Plus, you get pretty cookies at the end – ENJOY!*

*In moderation – staying healthy is also important in Novasutras practice. 

Do you have a favorite recipe that would suit a Novasutras celebration? Please share your ideas in the comments below.

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