Thanksgiving Rainbow Cookies -

With the Thanksgiving meal taken care of, I’d need to make a sweet treat that traveled easily. I’ve been wanting to make Rainbow Cookies since I failed at them last Christmas. So now, a Thanksgiving version! Though they are a bit candy corn-ish…

Thanksgiving (or Any Day) Rainbow Cookies

Adapted from VegLife’s awesome recipe.

2 and 1/4 cups All-purpose Flour

1 and 3/4 plus 1/8 tsp Baking Powder

1/4 tsp plus 1/8 tsp Salt

1 and 1/2 cups Sugar

1-1/4 cup Earth Balance

2 oz Almond Paste

6 Tablespoons Silken Tofu

1 and 1/8 tsp Vanilla Extract

3/4 cup plus 3 Tablespoon Soy Milk

Gel food color: yellow and orange (Or to your preference)

1/2 cup Jam

1/2 lb Vegan Chocolate Morsels

1.) Prepare: Bring soy milk, Earth Balance, silken tofu and almond paste to room temperature. Line three 8 inch square pans with parchment paper with overlap to easy handling. Weight your large mixing bowl in grams and note it somewhere.

2.) Preheat oven to 350.

3.) In a medium size bowl, sift flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.

4.) In the large mixing bowl you weighed, cream Earth Balance and sugar until fluffy, about 2 minutes.

5.) Add almond paste, silken tofu and vanilla and beat again until well incorporated. Really work the almond paste so that there are minimal lumps in the batter.

6.) Add 1/2 of the flour mixture and beat until incorporated, then add half the soy milk and beat. Add the rest of the flour and beat again, then the rest of the soy milk. Beat until well-incorporated.

7.) Weigh the bowl with the batter, then subtract the weight of the bowl. Then divide that by 3 and round to the nearest whole. Math!

8.) Place batter in fridge while you get two small bowls and food coloring ready to go. You can also put the dirty dishes in the sink at this point is you are slightly neurotic like me.

9.) Place one of your small bowls on the scale and reset scale to zero. Scoop in batter in accordance to your math and set aside. Repeat for the next small bowl. Set both aside while scooping the remaining batter into one of your prepared baking pans. Smooth the top with a rubber spatula as the batter is a bit thick.

10.) Add your desired colors to the separate bowls and mix well until the color is uniform. Then fill with two remaining prepared pans with the tinted batters.

11.) Bake for 20-25 minutes or till a toothpick comes out clean. Set all pans aside on cooling racks and let each cool in its pan.

12.) Meanwhile, prepare jam. Slightly heat and mix well to try to minimize lumps. If it’s a seeded fruit jam, you can push through a sieve. Set aside until layers have cooled completely.

13.) Once the layers have cool, use an offset spatula to spread half the jam on a tinted layer.

14.) Carefully release the untinted layer and place on top of the jelly layer. After, cover the top of the untinted layer with the remaining jam.

15.) Release the last layer and place on top of the jam. Cover the top with parchment paper and place one of the square pans on top of all the layers. Place some heavy things in the pan to press the layers together. Place the whole thing in the fridge for at least four hours.

16.) After, pull the cookie-cake carefully out of the bottom pan and place on a cutting board. You can trim edges with a serrated knife for uniformity and neatness.

17.) In a double-boiler, melt chocolate–mixing until smooth. Spread onto top of the cake-cookie. allow to cool a bit and then make those squiggle lines in the chocolate. Allow to set a couple of minutes before slicing.