Fun with Penises

I do apologise. I don’t think I’ll ever manage a more clickbaity blog title.

As I’m still not well enough to attend any of the book launch events, I had to do something to have a little fun.

So I’ve been doing some baking. Gluten- free, of course.

First, the naked cookies. I do confess that I quite like the way the dough was transformed as I transferred them to the baking tray – so that there are some long and thin cookies, and some shorter and a little stubby.

Then, I gave in to temptation. As always…

Vanilla flavoured icing – asked and answered.

Here they are in all their glory.

This cookie cutter is available from Bakerlogy – here

They also sell lots of other designs, not all of them anatomical in nature!

The recipe I used is below – gluten free as I was diagnosed with coeliac disease at the end of December last year. Please find a recipe with lots of lovely gluten in if you can eat it – otherwise these tasted pretty good, given that my standards have, of necessity, fallen.

Gluten-free sugar cookies

1 cup ground almonds
1 cup gf flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ cup sugar
60g butter, cubed
1 large egg
1 tbsp milk
Teaspoon vanilla paste

Put the dry ingredients in the food processor and add the cubes of butter and pulse to make it crumb. Add the vanilla, the egg, and perhaps ½ tablespoon of milk and pulse. You may need to add a little more milk to make the dough cohere into a ball, but be careful – you don’t want a very wet dough.

Put in a floured bag and chill for an hour. The gf dough is sticky and needs to chill.

Roll out on floured parchment of silicone baking mat until 5 mm thick

Flour the cookie cutter thoroughly.

Knead the dough scraps together again a couple of times and use the cutter again

Bake cookies in oven Gas Mark 4 for ten to fifteen minutes until pale golden brown.

Leave to cool on tray for ten minutes before carefully removing to the wire rack to cool completely.

Icing

Sift a cup of icing sugar into a bowl. Add a big pinch of salt, a teaspoon of vanilla paste, a knob (not sorry) of softened butter, and a splash of milk. Mix and adjust until you get a fairly stiff, shiny, white paste.

Transfer into an icing bag and decorate cookies as desired.

If you don’t have an icing bag, a plastic bag works. Snip the tiniest hole in one corner of the bag – being careful not to pill icing everywhere.

As it’s playtime, expect to get sticky and messy.

Launch and buying the book

I am disappointed not to be well enough to make it to any of the Stories About Penises events but please do check out the details here on Guts Publishing’s Home Page

The paperback can be purchased from various outlets –

• The Guts Publishing website
• The Word Bookshop, 314 New Cross Road, London SE14 6AF
• Gays The Word Bookshop, 66 Marchmont St, Saint Pancras, London WC1N 1AB 
• Amazon – the anthology will be available on Amazon sites worldwide on 28 November.
• If you loathe Amazon, there are many other online retailers who will be stocking the book. Too many to list. If you want to shop around, google this (ISBN and title): 9781999882327 Stories About Penises

Ann