Chewie Gingerbreadwookiees

Happy Holidays! I can't believe almost another year has passed. As usual, this holiday season, I made my favorite thick and chewy gingerbread cookie recipe. Each year, I try to do a different design, having made Gingy-bread Men (from Shrek) and Gingerbread Gentlemen cookies in the past, I wanted to continue this tradition this year.

I had just seen Star Wars: Episode VIII last week. And having made Chewie Wookiee Cookies (Chewbacca CCCs), Han Solo cups, and Yoda Match Truffles, I thought, why not more Star Wars? I thought about possibly making Ewoks, Jawas, or Banthas, but in the end decided to stick with Wookiees :). Perhaps next time for the other creatures!

I don't have wookiee shaped cookie cutters, so I drew my own stencil on paper and used that to guide my knife when cutting out shapes. Since I wanted to make these cookies holiday themed, I decked out Chewie's bandolier with holiday sprinkles instead of cartridges. But if you want to make this for any day of the year or you don't have holiday sprinkles, you can always draw in the cartridges with white chocolate like I did for one of the cookies in the photos. Enjoy, and may the force be with you :P!

Yoda Matcha Truffles

Happy Star Wars Day Everyone! May the 4th be with you. I made Chewie Wookiee Cookies (from exactly 2 years ago) yesterday… and had them for breakfast this morning. Seriously, cookies for breakfast = win!

Anyway, aside from the Chewie Wookiee Cookies, I wanted to make another Star Wars-themed recipe for this year's Star Wars Day. I've been craving something with matcha for a while, so I thought Yoda Matcha Truffles would be perfect. Aside from both being green, I associate both matcha and Yoda with zen and wisdom, so a perfect match!

The recipe is fairly straightforward. What was challenging was melting chocolate in humid weather, definitely not one of my favorite things to do. I also thought about just mixing white chocolate with matcha powder for the outside coating, but it turned out pretty grainy and icky looking, so I went back to relying on candy coloring to get the green tint for the coating. Other than that, they turned out pretty well, perfect for Star Wars Day.

P.S. In case you were wondering why these truffles only have eyes… I tried adding a mouth to some of the truffles (an example above ^), and for some reason they looked really strange to me. As I was decorating the other truffles, it hit me. The one with mouths really reminded me of the Adventure Time goblins rather than Yoda. I decided to hold back on noses as well since that would have made them look even more goblin like ><! When you make them, it's up to you whether to put a mouth on or not :P.

Chewie Wookiee Cookies

Happy Star Wars Day! I made these Chewie Wookiee Cookies at the end of spring break for my brother (who's a huge Star Wars fan & loves CCCs) since his break was the week after mine and I wouldn't get the chance to see him. My mom suggested leaving him a note, but I thought cookies would be better (i.e. more delicious) :D.

So the story behind these cookies started a few years ago, when I saw Philip Tseng's "Han Solo Cup & Chewbacca the Cookie" (below) online. Seriously, baked goods and Star Wars in an adorable presentation; it does not get better than that. And you know I'm all about the food puns :). Btw, check out the other illustrations on his site for more food illustrations (even a "Cherry Pie-rate"! Remember my Apple Pie-rate Ship?) and pop culture references (Adventure Time, TMNT, Arrested Development, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Back to the Future, Gameboy). If you like them, many are available as t-shirts and prints!

[Han Solo Cup & Chewbacca the Cookie | Image Credit: Philip Tseng]

Okay, flash forward to last year. I was visiting my brother in LA and saw his new Threadless shirt, with that same graphic! After seeing it again, I knew I needed to bake these cookies. Plus I'd been hoping to make something Star Wars related for a while. I took out my staple Thick & Chewy CCC cookie recipe and adapted it to this project.

I knew I'd be decorating the cookies with chocolate, so I left out the chocolate chips (feel free to leave them in if you like things extra chocolatey). And since I had some mini red Solo-ish cups lying around, I busted out my craft skills and decorated one of them, because just like Han needs Chewie, cookies need a cup of milk.

P.S. If you don't use all the cookie dough to make the Chewie Cookies, take the remaining dough, add chocolate chips, cut up some Snickers bars, and make Snickers stuffed CCCs!