baking experiment: fake-a-roons.

i often see things (food-wise) that i would like to recreate, but i'm a lazy baker/cook so i tend to try to fake it, by cheating. kinda like a young, tattooed Sandra Lee (who, in my opinion is a genius). i always want to duplicate stuff mainly because i like the way it looks.

i've been seeing lots of pics lately of macaroons. which i have never even tasted. but i LOVE how bright and colorful they are.












however, after browsing and perusing recipes, i've decided that it sounds like a ridiculously long and involved process. so i've decided to fake it.

i mainly want to get the look of the macaroons this time around. so i've decided to do it as basically as i possibly can. i'll be using sugar cookie mix, which i'll then divide my dough up to dye it different colors. i'm thinking about adding a tad bit of almond extract to my batter since this seems to be a recurring theme in the macaroon recipes. hopefully this won't mess with the integrity of my dough and give me some kind of weird consistency. then i'll be using just plain ol' dyed white icing for the filling, which i'll dye to match the cookies. basically i'll just be making a cookie sandwich. the only challenge i see thus far is how i am going to get the tops of my cookies smooth like the tops of the macaroons...we'll see!! so here goes nothing!

first i mixed up my dough, and then divided it into 4ths. i didn't add almond extract because i wasn't feeling it today. dying the dough was tricky. it was very dry and crumbly and this stuff was NOT just going to stir in like it would in cupcake batter. so i had to get my hands in it and knead it in by hand, which wound up working really well.



then i rolled it out and used a biscuit cutter to cut out my shapes. something i would do different: not roll it out quite as thin because the cookies got a tad too crisp. taste good, just too crunchy.





i baked them in batches by color just because i'm OCD like that.



then for the "filling" i just used regular 'ol canned fluffy white icing. and just like with the dough, i divided it up and dyed it to coordinate with the cookies.



and ta-daa! the finished product!!





ultimately, they turned out just how i wanted them, looks-wise. and they taste pretty delish too (afterall, it is just a sugar cookie with icing). the main thing i would do differently is use a stiffer filling (it oozes out the sides when you bite into it) and make the cookies softer (which i think would also help out with the oozing issue) by rolling out the dough thicker. any suggestions??