Honey-Sweetened Spiced Chocolate Cutout Cookies

I only very, very rarely try my hand at developing my own recipes, because there’s so much already out there on the Internet that I want to try. But every once in awhile the inspiration strikes me. I wanted to make cookies for an event and, because of dietary restrictions, they needed to be refined sugar free. Luckily for me, I have ready access to some high-quality local honey from Bee Quest Honey, which my aunt and uncle run. And I had previously served these Mexican chocolate shortbread cookies to rave reviews, and I knew that the unique taste of honey as a sweetener would offset the hint of cinnamon and cayenne pepper just perfectly. Using the Mexican chocolate cookie recipe and this recipe for honey cutout cookies as a base, I put together this recipe for sugar-free spiced chocolate cutout cookies. The recipe yielded about 4 dozen cookies (ymmv, depending on the size of your cookie cutters). I was super pleased with how they turned out, and I got the chance to use some recently acquired cookie cutters. Enjoy!

You’ll need:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 – 3/4 cup honey, depending on how sweet you want your cookies to be
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp finely ground coffee
• 1/4 tsp cayenne powder
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 2 cups flour

Cream the butter and honey together, and beat in the egg and vanilla. Combine the dry ingredients and stir them into the honey butter mixture. Flatten into a disc and refrigerate 30 mins. Then roll out to 1/4 inch thickness and bake 15 minutes at 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Enjoy!

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What I’m Into April 2017

As April draws to a close, I’m once again linking up with Leigh Kramer to share some of what I’ve been into this month.

Reading

Well, it’s looking like I’ll have no trouble meeting my 50 book pledge for the year, since I’m already at 44. This month, after hearing raves about it forever, I finally read Walter Brueggeman’s The Prophetic Imagination, and it feels as timely as ever. I also really enjoyed Princess Ben, which is a middle grade novel (Modern Mrs. Darcy’s Kindle deals have been broadening my horizons) with a really compelling lead. It reminds me of Gail Carson Levine’s books, and she was my absolute favourite growing up. I also just finished The Circle, and am feeling pretty unsettled by it still. I expected it to be dark, but it was even more so than I thought it would be. I did call Kalden’s identity pretty much as soon as he showed up though, and I can’t decide whether that means I should be proud of myself or that it was too obvious. As usual, you can see all the books I’ve read so far this year here.

Watching

We saw two plays this month: Singin’ in the Rain in St. Jacobs and The Bodyguard at the Princess of Wales theatre in Toronto. Both were lovely, but I’m even more excited to see HMS Pinafore in Stratford on Friday.

TV-wise, I watched all of Dear White People and Thirteen Reasons Why on Netflix (TRW was compelling cinema, but I totally understand the issues people have with it. If you’ve got kids watching it I’d definitely recommend having some in-depth discussions with them about the content.)

Listening

Easter is unquestionably my favourite time of the church year musically. I love how lovely and haunting the Good Friday songs are and how beautiful and joyful the Easter morning songs are. Aaron and I joined the Good Friday choir, got ever so slightly better at reading music, and learned a whole bunch of new songs. This one was probably my favourite. We sang the English version (Ah Holy Jesus), but the Berlin choral rendition was the prettiest one I could find on Youtube.

Then on Easter morning we sang one of my favourite Easter songs (A Toi La Gloire/Thine Be the Glory) and I found out that my church can really rock a congregational rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus. It’s apparently a tradition, so we’ve that to look forward to next year as well.

On the not hymns front, I started listening to the Dear Evan Hansen soundtrack, and I’ve really been liking it.

Eating

My favourite thing I made this month was definitely this cream cheese and prosciutto-stuffed chicken. This Mediterranean chicken with roasted red pepper sauce was also pretty great, and this chocolate chip cookie dough cake was a big hit when we had friends over for dinner. As usual, you can see all my favourites on my monthly What I’m Into Pinterest board.

That’s about it for me for the month of April. Be sure to head over to Leigh’s blog and check out some of the other link-up submissions.