Plant Butter Cookie Baking?

   I recently learned about plant butter to replace butter when you are dealing with gerd or acid reflux-which has been a real struggle for me since April.

  I mixed up cut out cookie dough and since my favorite is gingerbread just made that one for me and not the sugar cut out dough.

  It stayed softer than normal in the frig-so was a bit of a challenge to roll out. My Mom had suggested many years ago to dust the board and cutters with powdered sugar and not flour-as more flour makes the cookies tough. So doing that rolling out and cutting the shapes worked well.

  My cookies are really delicious but they did not hold their shapes at all during baking.  I am not supposed to eat any sugar either but I made mine with organic free trade sugars-those are so full of flavors, I am just not into splenda or those keto sweeteners at all. I rarely eat sugar these days so went with the real sugars

  My question is have any of you baked cookies with the plant butter-and had this same issue of them spreading out-a lot??   

  

  The bison and gingerbread man turned out the best-perhaps because the dough came right out of the frig. 

Below the lady gingerbread did not fair so well  These are just for me being gluten free as well. I will need to freeze these so I don't eat too many smiles

This was "bugging" me so I asked online here is what it said

Plant butter can cause cut-out cookies to spread more than dairy butter primarily due to differences in fat content, water content, and a lower melting point. 

Key Factors

• Lower Melting Point: Plant-based fats often have a lower melting point than the saturated fat found in dairy butter. This means the plant butter melts faster in the oven, causing the cookie dough to spread rapidly before the flour and other structural ingredients have a chance to set.
• Higher Water Content: Many plant butters and margarines contain more water and less fat than traditional dairy butter, which is typically around 80-85% fat. This extra moisture turns into steam during baking, contributing to increased spreading.
• Different Emulsifiers/Stabilizers: The specific blend of oils and emulsifiers in plant butter may not trap air as effectively during the creaming process as dairy butter does. Air pockets are crucial for providing structure and lift, which helps the cookies hold their shape. A lack of sufficient structure leads to a flatter, more spread-out cookie. 

How to Mitigate Spreading

To help control the spread when using plant butter in cut-out cookie recipes, consider the following tips:

• Use the Right Product: Use a high-quality plant-based butter that comes in sticks (which generally have a higher fat content) rather than a tub of spread (which often has more water). Look for a product with a fat content close to regular butter (around 80%).
• Ensure Proper Temperature: Make sure the plant butter is at cool room temperature, not overly soft or warm, before mixing. Room temperature butter should be pliable but still cool to the touch.
• Chill the Dough: Chilling the cookie dough before baking is a critical step. This firms up the fat, which slows the rate at which the cookies spread in the oven.
• Adjust the Flour: You might need to add a small amount of extra flour to the dough to adjust the wet-to-dry ratio and provide more structure.

Spring for Christmas & a Painting

   Good Evening,

    We have been windy and chilly like a lot of the country, but no snow-Am happy about that.

Next week including Christmas Day we will be in the 70's F-Wow was not expecting that. Will be nice for travelers though, and I like it too.

So I was thinking of what to paint today, and decided on flowers that led to Spring.

   I am enjoying these watercolor gouache paints the more I use them-they dry much faster than watercolor paints which I am liking.

 I thought I messed up this piece by adding in the blue sky afterwards but decided it was ok. I need to remember to paint the whole piece of paper first to get rid of the white paper background which I do not like showing

(photos will enlarge just click on them)  I like this one

   I am anxious for the beginner gouache book to arrive, along with a beginner watercolor book on flowers-this one looked more simple for a beginner. The mail has been so slow-as to be expected-for packages.  I did learn that one more person received their Christmas card.

  I am hoping to roll out Christmas cookies tomorrow.

Watercolor Practice

  Good afternoon,

    That was strange I wrote a post-and it ended up on one of my deleted blogs-sigh Not sure how that happened. Of course copy and paste to here did Not work. 

  Last night I worked on painting-a theme I have painted in the past-sky-mountains-and a meadow in the front.  I liked this one better.

  I used mostly the watercolor gouache paints, and in the meadow the bluish green grass is ink, and the other is gouache.

(photos will enlarge for better viewing-just click on them)

On the pallet-to the left is the watercolor gouache, and to the right is watercolor paints

I softened the sky colors and also the background green in the meadow-so am pleased with that.  I had added some snow to the mountain tops but I didn't like how that looked so painted over it.

   I am more pleased with this painting than my previous ones on this subject.  Now to decide what I want to try painting next.

   This week we have been enjoying watching the pelicans and the sea gulls This time of year we get the smaller sea gulls than what we see in the spring and summer.

  I did make the chocolate bark this week along with some chex mix. I am making some things for our two workers that help us out.  This morning I mixed up some roll out cookie doughs. May try to bake some this evening.

  I searched the internet for an acid reflux friendly chex mix recipe for me-it turned out pretty good instead of onion and garlic powder I used herbs  mostly herb de provence and used less butter and less worchester sauce. I liked it much better than the original-and did not get sick from it. A good thing-smiles

  Happy weekend everyone Christmas is almost here

Played With Paints Tonight-Monday Update

    My two football teams both lost today-and Mahomes left injured-I was hoping that the Packers would win over the Denver Broncos but one can't win throwing interceptions. These two teams would be a good match in the super bowl though-I remember the last super bowl these teams played each other.  I lived in Denver for awhile back when they won the super bowl probably the '80s or late '70s-that was really fun to live in the city that wins the super bowl. They played in the super bowl again when Favre was their quarterback-I was rooting for either team to win haha.

  I have never painted with gouache and wanted to try it-the watercolor gouache not the acrylic. I asked one of my slow mail friends about brands and the one she suggested was expensive for me-I don't know what I am doing yet- just playing with paints haha but am saving the brand name for future reference..  

   My go to is Winsor Newton and I have been happy with their student grade paints-so I found a small tube set on Amazon and since it was such a good sale bought two packages.

  These are bolder paints than I am used to so I will play around more to subdue the colors.  I almost wasn't going to share this as it is not great especially my little mountain cabin-I will play with that some more tomorrow.

  A few yeas ago I started out with acrylic paints-those were too bold too for me I still have those paints as swell.

  In this painting, I used gouache, watercolors, and watercolor inks all by Winsor Newton.

(for better viewing click on photos to enlarge)

The bolder colors are the gouache, the little patch of tan is watercolor, and the red flowers and the white flowers in the green mound is watercolor ink.

  I used my glass dip pen for the ink. I will go back in tomorrow and do something with the little cabin and add more white ink to the flowers in the grass.  

  I am thinking since I don't care to have white showing-I need to choose a light paint color to cover the whole page-let dry and then paint.  I don't usually have a plan at all when I create. I wanted to play with the new paint gouache and ended up with a mountain looking over a stream.

  Have a good night and enjoy your new week ahead.

Happy Monday we have full sunshine and warm up coming in

  I played around with above painting a bit to soften the colors

  I will be working with gauche again and the watercolors to see what occurs next haha

  Happy new week

Mostly for my Slow Mail Friends

   Good afternoon,

    We are headed into bitter cold again-but don't think any snow so far.  However a big warm up again next week.  I may just bake or make up some chocolate goodies.

I am concerned about what happened to my big stack of Christmas postcards I mailed out on December first. I asked a couple friends and no one has received them. I also mailed out letters to my slow mail friends.

I purposely mailed out early thinking they would go through the mail before the big push.  Today is the 12th day since they were mailed.  

    Sooo slow mail friends let me know if you received mail from me. Thank you.  I don't expect the international letters to be where they are going just yet.

   Caching up with laundry today and tomorrow want to finish up with the house cleaning. That's all from me just now.

   Enjoy your weekend hugs from the lake

White Caps on the Lake

 Good morning, Lots of sunshine, cooler weather today-much cooler with the strong winds-and white caps on the lake. No snow though or ice.

  Which always makes me smile to see white caps on a man made lake haha.  When I snapped this photo the wind wasn't as strong so not as many caps in this photo. Most of the morning-the whole lake had the white caps. Photo will enlarge just click on it

   I did get a food shopping trip in yesterday, but I need to go into the other town as well-soon. Not today though with this strong wind.

  I picked up a nice adult coloring book with a Christmas theme while shopping at Wal Mart. It even had several pages of instructions with the color wheel etc-which I thought was nice. I really need to take time to understand that color wheel better. Especially for mixing colors. The book featured colored pencils and watercolor pencils-I have both. Those pages were really a nice feature in this book, which I have not seen before.

   I found it for sale online as well-so I could share a photo easier

  I have not started baking or candy making as of yet-thinking early next week for that. I won't do much at all this year. With the acid reflux issue no chocolate for me or sugar or dairy and our neighbor that loves chocolate is leaving for Florida  next week and will stay til March or later-so I may just make her some chocolate treats when she gets back for Easter.

     I love peanut brittle which I make for a friend but with the acid reflux that is out as well as anything with sugar in it.  No wonder I can not get weight back on.  smiles.

  Enjoy the rest of your week

Watercolor Practice-Updated

 Good Evening Friends,

    We did get a bit of a warm up so the snow is mostly melted, and our furnace is fixed. Happy dancing about that.

  After my shower I wanted to make sure my hair was dry before I hit the bed-so played with watercolors and ink.

 What popped into my head was a Christmas tree lot. I didn't get the right green mixed up but this one was fun.

Photos will enlarge just click on them

This ink I made a couple years ago-it is now a pretty brown I used it for the sale barn

I used black ink for the signs

Sounds like a lot of wind coming in tonight  Enjoy your evening

A little update to this post. Brrrrr it is soooo cold here today We are still in the low 20's F even with full sunshine. Thankfully the strong winds from last night moved on.

I played around with my painting a bit this morning while doing some laundry. 

    Added a little darker green to some of the trees, added tree trunks and I was playing with the little shed that did not turn out so well- so I just filled it in with the same ink which I am liking. I kinda wanted to add a tree by the shed with a little stick person-not sure about that haha  

    Stay warm if you have these crazy cold temperatures too