…or, as i like to call them, “double chametz.” 🏆
i initially thought up these cookies while having a mid-passover bagel craving last week. for the uninitiated, this is sort of like a normal bagel craving, but with a little more urgency and a lot more staring-out-the-window-and-sighing-dramatically. add the whole pandemic thing on top, and you’ve got yourself a full-on existential crisis. i mean, what are the odds that any of us are gonna get our hands on a decent bagel in the next, oh, two months?
(if anything could herald the end of the world, it’s a manhattan-dwelling girl uttering that statement.)
of course—and it probably goes without saying, but i’ll say it anyway—in the grand and even not-so-grand scheme of things, this…doesn’t matter. we all know that. what matters right now is staying inside, staying safe, and keeping others safe, and our very small sacrifices look like nothing at all when compared with theirs.
…DESPITE this.
the bagel thought.
it persisted.
the solution: these cookies.
i made these bagel look-a-likes using a small-batch sugar cookie recipe, which involved the very last egg in my fridge and my last stick of butter too. for the “lox” and “capers,” i used two orange starburst and one green sour patch kid, respectively.
you know you’re low on groceries when you’re using the singular “sour patch kid.”
meanwhile, for the “sesame seeds,” i used a tiny container of black vanilla fondant that i discovered in my pantry (from last year’s halloween party!). and the dessert-ified “cream cheese” slathered on each bagel is just your basic cream cheese frosting. nothing fancy there.
i’m happy to report that the using-up of precious ingredients was very, very worth it. the resulting batch of 12 cookies (aka six total “bagels”) was perfectly sweet, a little bit chocolatey / snickerdoodle-y, and promptly eaten up by my very excited quarantine crew. they’re also sufficiently chewy, but still hold their shape.
while i’m not promising that these guys can replace the feeling that comes with, you know, actual bagels, they will entertain your kids for a few hours, and they’ll make you smile. which is sort of half the battle right now, no?
here’s how to bring them to life:
bagel sugar cookies with cream cheese frosting and candy lox
note: this is a small-batch recipe. it yields 12 cookies for a total of 6 assembled “bagel” sandwich cookies. double the recipe if you’re hoping to create more bagels! also, the base sugar cookie recipe here is adapted from dessert for two.
what you’ll need:
for the cookies:
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (or an extra 1/2 teaspoon vanilla)
- 1-2 tablespoons of water
for the cocoa “paint” and candy bagel fixings:
- 1-2 orange starburst
- 1-2 green sour patch kids
- 4.4 ounces black fondant
- 1 batch cream cheese frosting (half of this recipe will work)
- 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
- 1/2 teaspoon light brown sugar (optional)
- 1/2 cup water
- a small craft paintbrush
what you’ll do:
- make the cookies: preheat the oven to 350 degrees. in a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. set aside.
- in the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy using the whisk attachment, then add the egg yolk and extracts and continue to mix. slowly add the flour mixture in small increments; continue mixing just until combined—but don’t over-mix.
- turn out the dough onto a lightly-floured surface. gather it into a 2-inch thick flat disc (you may need to add a bit of water, 1/4 teaspoon at a time, if it’s not coming together).
- using a rolling pin, roll out the dough until it’s about 1/4-inch thick, then cut out circles using one large and one smaller circular cookie cutters. to get the oblong, oval-shaped look of the cookies pictured here, use a rolling pin to give each individual cut-out dough piece another quick roll in one direction (don’t overdo it or the dough will get too thin). gather the scraps and re-roll to continue cutting.
- place the cut-out dough shapes on a parchment-lined baking sheet and place in the freezer for 5 minutes.
- bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges begin to brown. allow to cool completely on the sheet.
- make the candy bagel fixings:
for “lox”: unwrap starburst and place on a microwave-safe plate. microwave for 10-12 seconds or until soft and pliable, but not melted. using your hands, stretch the candy until it’s thin enough to be nearly transparent, then break into small pieces. you can also layer each small pieces back on top of itself, as shown, to mimic the look of lox.
for the “capers”: rip tiny pieces off of the sour patch kid(s) and roll them into small balls resembling capers.
for the “sesame seeds”: roll tiny (really tiny!) pieces of fondant into seed-like ovals with tapered, pointy ends. (as you roll them between your fingers or palms, they’ll naturally taper off at the ends as pictured.)
for the “cream cheese”: i used this cream cheese frosting recipe. - paint the cooled cookies: mix together the cocoa powder and brown sugar in a small bowl, and create a little work station near your 1/2 cup water and the cooled cookies. using the paintbrush, dip first into the water, then into the cocoa powder—this will allow you to control how diluted the “paint” is.
start by painting a “burnt”-looking outer rim and a few “browned” spots on each of half of the cookies to mimic the look of the inside of a bagel (you’ll paint the other half of your cookie batch to look more like the exterior of a bagel). use the water to even out any too-intense splotches and create a realistic fade effect by diluting and even “dragging” the color over into the interior of the cookie.
on the other half of the cookies, paint an even coating of the watered-down cocoa-cinnamon-sugar mixture all over. no “browned” rims for these guys. - assemble the bagels! use a knife or small offset spatula to coat each “interior bagel” piece with a thin layer of cream cheese frosting (for mine, i wanted to let a little of the browned surfaces peek through, so i didn’t overload them with frosting). add “lox” and “capers.” on the “exterior bagel” cookies, apply tiny dabs of water, then the black fondant “sesame seeds”—the water will dry and hold them in place. the colors of the fondant might bleed a little, but i sort of enjoyed that effect.
sandwich the cookies together unevenly (so as to show off the inside!), share, eat, enjoy!