Perfect Cookie Recipes for Horse Lovers
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Racing-themed cookies at the ABR Belmont Stakes party. (Photo courtesy of Ariana Mygatt)
December brings with it cookies of all kinds, for holiday celebrations and cozy nights in. In honor of cookies here are five perfect cookie recipes for horse lovers. What makes them special? They’re all inspired by or made with ingredients that our favorite four-legged equines enjoy – oats, peppermints, carrots and more!
Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, makes some of my very favorite recipes to whip up including this one for her Raisin Pecan Oatmeal Cookies. Not only are they easy to make, but they're delicious!
OATMEAL COOKIES
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Cookies shaped like horse heads, jockey silks and horseshoes are always a crowd favorite – just ask the guests that we had at our Black-Eyed Susan and Belmont Stakes parties!
Start with a simple sugar cookie recipe - Martha Stewart knows best – her Ideal Sugar Cookies are just that! If you want to change the flavor a tad sub out the vanilla extract for almond extract – it’s my family’s go-to baking swap.
SUGAR COOKIE
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Once you whip up the sugar cookie batter make sure you refrigerate it before rolling it out, cutting your shapes and baking it. It’ll help the cookies keep their cut-out shape!
Don’t have equine-inspired cookie cutters at home? Fear not!
Sur La Table has a 3.5-inch horse cookie cutter, CopperGifts.com has two different size horseshoe cookie cutters and Horse.com has an adorable horse and rider set where the cookie rider can actually sit on the cookie horse once they’re baked and cooled off!
RACING COOKIES AT ABR'S BLACK-EYED SUSAN PARTY
Photo courtesy of Victoria Garofalo
If you choose to go hog-wild and attempt to decorate your cookies like the professionals, Martha’s Royal Icing recipe is the only one that seems to work for me without the colors running and making a sloppy, albeit tasty, mess.
Chewy Double Chocolate Peppermint Cookies may remind you of winter and holidays, but I promise you they are utterly delicious any time of the year. The best part of making them is that the Minimalist Baker creates all of her recipes so that they can be made in one bowl – I’ve never heard anyone complain about having less to clean up!
COCOA COOKIES
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I love October because it’s finally fall and this Betty Crocker Old Fashioned Apple Cookie recipe makes me (and my tummy) quite satisfied. If I was baking them I would double the recipe and mix a few different apple varieties together - cut three apples into thirds (skin on) and use two thirds of each for the cookies (the leftovers are obviously best when topped with peanut butter).
APPLE COOKIES
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Let's face it - the best cookies are homemade Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies. Call me crazy, but adding one very ripe mashed banana to the recipe leaves you with a pretty enchanting bite – and new cookie creation. The consistency will be a bit more of a muffin, cakelike texture - like pumpkin cookies, but they're the perfect hybrid!
CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
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Can't you just smell them all now? I think I’ll get to baking!
Bonus! Wondering what kind of cookies horses like? Well 2014 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner California Chrome’s favorite cookies are Mrs. Pastures Cookies for Horses and I totally get why he likes them – they are made without preservatives and with all natural ingredients (oats, wheat bran, cane molasses, rolled barley, apples and water). Yup, that’s me and my pals eating them in the picture above. They honestly didn’t taste bad – just a tad on the hard side since they’re dehydrated!
SAMPLING MRS. PASTURES COOKIES
Photo courtesy of Victoria Garofalo
My friend Jim Mulvihill ventured into Times Square to put New Yorkers though a taste test of Mrs. Pastures cookies against one nationally recognizable brand – take a look:
Do you have a favorite equine-inspired recipe? Let me know what your favorite cookies to make (and EAT!) are! Tweet me at @itsmevictoriag and @TeamABRLive.