One session beer I have been seeing a lot is the Evil Twin Citra Sunshine Slacker. The description explains it all: Despite his bitterness, lack of power and insuperable aversion to any kind of extravagant labor – he kind of has a charming charisma, and perhaps he is even loveable. Somehow we find him unbelievable irresistible and stimulating because he is one of the few that masters the ability to effortlessly impress with his sharp intelligence and make it look so damn easy.

In one had I had this session IPA that was citrusy and hoppy but light, and in the other hand I had these brand new and super rad cactus cookie cutters that I was dying to use. Screw convention, I am making cactus cookies with an IPA. Let’s take the bitterness head-on with some lime juice, why not.

Ingredients:

4 cups of sifted AP Flour

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 cup or 2 sticks of unsalted butter

2 cups sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract (or beer!)

Frosting:

1 lb. of powdered sugar

1 tablespoon of light corn syrup

2/3 cups of beer

1 tablespoon of lime juice

Gel food coloring

(you might need to adjust the amount of powered sugar depending on consistency…more for thicker frosting and less for a thinner more runny frosting. I opted for a thick frosting that was easy to control)

Directions:

1. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together into a bowl.

2. Beat butter and sugar together on medium speed in an electric stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Mix until pale and fluffy, for 3 minutes or so. Add in the vanilla (or beer) and eggs and mix until incorporated. Add flour mixture in slowly until incorporated.

3. Put cookie dough in plastic wrap and let chill in the fridge about 1 hour or until firm. I wrapped it into three disks and only used two of them and froze the third. This yields a good amount of cookies.

4. Roll-out the dough in between two sheets of plastic wrap until about 1/4 inch thick. Using the plastic wrap will help keep the cookies from getting too dry from adding extra flour during the roll-out process.

5. Cut out the shapes and place on cookie sheets with parchment paper or silpats. Put in the freezer for 15 minutes so the cookies will keep the shape while baking.

6. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Cook for 15-18 minutes until the edges are brown. Let cookies cool before icing.

7. Whisk icing ingredients together, make sure that the icing is very thick so it will keep the piping shapes you want. Make sure to add more powdered sugar if necessary. I made three colors of frosting, one pink for the “pot” and one bright green for the cactus and a dark grey/black for the cactus spikes. They will get completely dry overnight and will be pretty hard so they can be put in an airtight container to travel if needed. If it gets too hot the frosting will get melty again.

These turned out great. I got the bitterness and beer flavor, but it wasn’t overpowering. The cookie wasn’t really sweet, it just had a nice crunch to it. The frosting was an interesting balance of sweet, tangy and hoppy. They turned out so cute! I can’t wait to figure out more ways to use my cactus cookie cutter.

cheers!