hooray for sugar cookies! Sometimes, all you want is a little plain vanilla sweetness. :)

I know what you mean about scary white-flour-lard-sugar cookies -- they sell those at some supermarkets here. I'm so scared of them! I used to eat them, and they'd make my teeth hurt. Obviously not the healthiest option. ;-)

How funny! - I, too, remember many late night Eat-n-Park Smiley Face cookies indulgences from way back in my high school days! I loved those things so much that my mom would actually bring some with her whenever she came to visit me for years after I moved away from home ... and then came veganism and those cookies went the way of the Dodo :-)

Another coincidence: I also tried to use cherry juice to dye a food product pink last week (cake, in my case). I had to use food coloring to mask the purple grayness of the cake! Your cookies, however, look very nice.

catherine - I love plain vanilla stuff. I love more complex things as well, but you're right, sometimes simple is just what you want. Sweet and uncomplicated. I usually use whole wheat pastry flour when I bake, but since these were mostly for someone else I decided to throw caution to the wind and use unbleached all-purpose. Next time I'm going to try them with the WW flour, though.

gail - Aren't they good? They're addictive. Sometimes my best friend and I would just go and get a bag of cookies. So terrible, but so delicious! You should give these a try, they're very similar. A bit softer, maybe, but that would be easily remedied by rolling the dough thinner or baking them longer. I'm glad I'm not the only one who was fooled by cherry juice! It doesn't work very well at all. Beet juice is the way to go for coloring things pink.

These are so pretty. They look like they would be perfect for easter.

beautiful icing job! :)

megan - I thought that, too. Especially iced with blue, yellow, and green.

melissa - Thanks!

Way to get me craving cookies! <3
These are so, so pretty. I love when an old favorite veganized is still such a treat. Rugelach cookies do that for me, sigh.

jess - Aw, thanks! The icing was pretty basic, so I'm glad they turned out well. I think I had rugelach once, pre-vegan. They were good.

lisa - I hope they work out for you if you try the recipe! It was a pretty painless veganization.

I don't know what an Eat n' Park is but those cookies sure do look good.

Those cookies are so cute with the icing swirls. No more sweets this week for me, but maybe I will give them a try next week.

Looking at them reminded me of shortbread cookies and for some reason I just wanted to add instant coffee and a dash of kahlua to the recipe.

Thanks for the inspiration!

Mmmm, cookies. I am trying very hard not to bake too often, but these will go in the "someday" file. Do let us know how the whole wheat version comes out.

grace - Eat 'n Park is a family-style chain restaurant. I'm not sure how widespread it is. The food is your typical chain restaurant stuff, boring and heavy on the meat and cheese. But the cookies were good. :) And these are too, so I consider the homage a success.

jody - I'm not crazy for coffee, but for some reason I do love Kahlua. I think a Kahlua version would be delicious. Maybe cinnamon in the dough and Kahlua in the icing? Yum!

shananigans - I'm trying not to bake, either, but these were for a special occasion. And they're actually not too bad for you, as far as cookies go. Of course that changes if you eat 5 in a row, which is a distinct possibility. I think I'll probably make half a batch with wheat flour next week, so I'll definitely post about it then.

I think I may have mentioned before how much of a chocolate fiend I am. I also really like vanilla. Those cookies do look very cute.

I love vanilla as well. Even more than chocolate when it comes to baked goods, actually. :)

oooh, so pretty! i love them, and the icing is adorable.

Thanks! Pink makes everything tastier.

They look great! I'm thrilled to know that the recipe turned out good when vegan-ized. And I think I have to agree with that crack-in-the-icing theory...

It's true, the Eat 'n Park cookie is evil. :) The recipe veganized perfectly - they tastes great. It's definitely a keeper. I love your blog, by the way! You always post such yummy-looking things.

Aww, thanks!

YUM!!!

Way to veganize.

I'm a fan of vanilla as well, fyi. I actually prefer it over chocolate...

I've got to try those cookies! I use to love that cookies too!

kleo - Me too! I used to adore the vanilla-flavored Tootsie rolls, pre-vegan. They were so much better than the regular ones.

webly - I'm glad I'm not the only one who fell under the spell of the smiley cookie. :) You'll definitely like these.

Amanda, I'm a Swarthmore alum and vegan. I'm cooking in Oakland, CA and I have full faith in your recipes. These cookies are on the frustrating side, being essentially frozen batter cut and laid out on cookie sheets. More respect for you.

delicious! I died the cookie dough with a little pink dye paste for Easter. I was short a few ingredients so I used maple syrup for the vanilla extract and lemon extract for the almond and cream of tarter instead of the white vinegar. At first the dough looked a little too much like bread dough but they were very tasty. I used organic powder sugar for the icing and dyed it purple. yum!