Zookies & Ziscuits for Everyone

If you’ve been following the discussion about accommodating children with allergies and the considerations you have to make, you might be curious about “the recipe” I used to make zookies and ziscuits for my children’s English classes (3 to 5 years-olds) to celebrate learning the alphabet.

I say “the recipe” because, domestic goddess that I am, sugar cookies are really the only thing I can bake completely from memory. The essential thing here is not the recipe, it’s the shape of the end result. If you’re celebrating getting to the end of the alphabet, the zookies and ziscuits must be shaped like the letter Z.

If your school has cooking facilities, you can make the actual cookies with the kid and a parent helper. Since I am not a complete sucker for punishment While my own children help me at home, I haven’t been brave enough to attempt it with a whole class so I pre-make the cookies and have the kid’s decorate them.

The dough ingredients:

1 cup of butter, or margarine if one of the children has dairy allergies.

1 cup of sugar plus a teaspoon.

1 egg

Note: If one of the children is allergic to eggs and you don’t want to buy a commercial egg substitute, Gina, of Allergy Moms told me that tofu, applesauce, banana, and even cornstarch or flax seed mixed with water can stand in. The important thing is to keep mixing and make sure that your batter consistency isn’t too wet.

1/2 to 3/4 tablespoon lemon or orange juice.

2 1/2 cups of spelt flour.

The icing:

1 heaping tablespoon of icing sugar per child

1 drop of food coloring per child

1/2 teaspoon of warm water per child

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 200 °C or 375°F.

Cream the butter and sugar together.

When fully combined, mix in the egg, or egg substitute, and add the juice.

Slowly stir in 1 1/2 cups of the spelt flour. When it’s dry enough to touch, slowly knead in the remaining flour and form a ball until the dough is stiff enough to shape.

Divide the dough into cookie size balls and hand roll them into tubes, or as my son says, “make it into a long, long worm.” On a cookie sheet, shape the tubes into the letter Z.

I find I have to watch spelt flour cookies pretty carefully to know when they’re done, but 8 to 12 minutes is about right.

To prepare the icing:

I do this part with the kids. Measure out a heaping tablespoon into a cup for each child. In turn, I ask each of them what color they want and add a drop of food coloring. I then add a few drops of water and they stir up the paste. Sometimes, we have to add a little more sugar or a little more water to get the texture just right. The kids then decorate their own zookies and ziscuits.

Note to other teachers: Always begin this activity exactly an hour before home time so that the heights of the sugar rush are not reached during class time.