I've made weird cookies before. The walrus cookies of 2012. The Xanadu cookies (apparently I'm the only person to admit to loving Xanadu). That time I tried making Don Draper cookies and they ended up looking exactly like Mitt Romney.
Well, these cookies are more abstract than on-the-nose. Mr. E, knowing what they represent, said they're like cookies to take to a support group. He's not wrong.
These cookies are my representation of...a migraine headache aura. Yep, I told you. WEIRD.
Luckily, I've only had three migraine headaches in my life. How do you know you're having a migraine? You want to detach your head from your body. (Not to be dramatic, but migraines are no joke.) My heart goes out to all of you who have them regularly.
I hadn't put the aura together with the headache until Saturday. My friend was giving me a ride home after we'd finished running a very rainy 5K. I commented to her that I felt like there was rain in my eye. There was a splotch in my vision, very much like a rain drop, and on one side of the splotch was a very colorful and shiny, c-shaped curve...like many prisms all in a row. (I didn't mention that part because I didn't want to scare her.)
{Side note: these would also make really cool planet or moon cookies.}
An hour or so later came the crushing headache and nausea. And for the ONE AND ONLY time in my life, googling symptoms actually told me something of value. I googled "headache and nausea," and the first result that came up was Migraine: headache, nausea, light aura. WHAT? Ding, ding, ding! Last time I saw that aura, I didn't put it together with the headache.
People can see different things - squiggly lines, big patches of grey, flashes of light, or none at all. Mine looked almost exactly like this. Almost like a kaleidescope.
*photo credit: WebMD
Anyway, my cookie brain went to work and I immediately wanted to cookie this thing. I don't know why. Maybe it's time for an intervention. Maybe I have too much time on my hands now that I'm an empty-nester.
For the base of the cookie, I used royal icing as usual and dipped the cookies instead of outlining and filling, like I did here on the emoji cookies. The cookies dried overnight.
Once completely dry, I mixed white food coloring with just a touch of black food coloring and a little vodka. I also made a mixture that was just vodka and black food coloring. Using a flat brush, I dipped into the lighter grey "paint" and blotted it on a paper towel. I painted the entire cookie. Next, I dipped a tiny edge of the brush in the black paint and brushed it over for variation in the shades. This will dry in about an hour.
Meanwhile, I melted some Jolly Ranchers to make the "prism" edge. Place a few candies on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake at 300 for 10 minutes. Remove the parchment from the cookie sheet and let cool completely.
Pipe white royal icing along one edge of the cookies. Break up the cooled candies and press onto the piped icing.
And, now you have yourself some weird migraine aura cookies! Hooray!
I'd love to know...do you get migraines? Do you have the aura, too? What does yours look like?
