edible rainbow cookie dough!?

My favorite type of cookie isn't technically a cookie at all- it's the rainbow cookie(also known as Italian rainbow cookies or Italian flag cookies). They must be a regional thing up in New York and Long Island since I've never seen rainbow cookies in the Publix in Florida I visited while on vacation five years ago. But they're like heaven in your mouth. I love rainbow cookies so much, on multiple past birthdays, I've had a rainbow cookie ice cream birthday cake years ago and even a rainbow cookie cake for my 23rd birthday! Maybe it's because I associate these cookies with memories of when I was still little enough to sit in the front of the supermarket shopping cart with my mom, or maybe it's because of the mouth feel of a cake, hardened chocolate, and jelly in your mouth simultaneously.

Here's a link that describes rainbow cookies in all its beauty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_cookie

Over the years, I've had many different flavors of edible cookie dough(and sometimes I order edible cookie dough online from Edoughble). But I've never seen nor eaten rainbow cookie dough. So I decided to make an edible cookie dough version of this recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rainbow-cookies-recipe.html.

Of course, when you make edible cookie dough of any flavor, you cannot use any egg products because raw eggs can make you ill. Luckily, there are some good egg substitutes that you can eat raw: instead of egg yolks, I used applesauce and in lieu of egg whites, I used aquafaba(chickpea water).

It would really help if you own a stand mixer or hand mixer. I had the latter, but not the attachment that came with it, which makes it just as useless as no mixer at all. So if you do it by hand, you're going to get a good arm workout. But you're also going to need a lot of patience.

I almost thought the almond paste would never incorporate into the granulated sugar. But it was only until I added the butter that everything came together.

The best part about making edible cookie dough is that you get to eat it every step of the process. So I tasted the dough's metamorphosis from almond paste with sugar on it to a delightful, finished cookie dough.

This dough is so sweet, it will make you want to start eating savory snacks. Or maybe it was because I ate too much cookie dough. But I still love it and so does my dad, even though he said he wouldn't eat it normally since he's a diabetic.

My dad said the dough just tasted like rainbow cookies, even though I just learned the red jelly traditionally used in rainbow cookies is actually raspberry jelly and not strawberry jelly. I say this recipe is one of the best ones I've ever made.

Although in reality, this is not how rainbow cookies are usually made- each layer is baked into a cake and only after it's flattened overnight is the jelly put in between the layers. But creative liberties, people. Creative liberties.

Of course, there is some risk to eating raw flour, but eating raw egg products is a lot more riskier.

I find that using the food colorings in the Helpful Link is better than just using food dye which is more of a liquid than icing. Food dye tends to bleed into every surface it comes into contact with.

I'm not sure if this recipe can be considered to be a raw cookie recipe since the finished product is a huge dough and not a bunch of little cookies, but that's what I said in the first few seconds of the video and I'm sticking to that statement!

HELPFUL LINK: Green and Red Food Colorings: http://www.amazon.com/Wilton-Set-8-Icing-Colors/dp/B0000CFMU7/ref=sr_1_2?srs=2603741011&ie=UTF8&qid=1464643598&sr=8-2&

You will need:

For the cooking equipment:

A large bowl
A medium bowl
4 small bowls
A whisk
A spatula without holes
A stand mixer or hand mixer(highly recommended!)
Gloves(but not latex or rubber) for when handling the food coloring
Toothpicks for dipping into the food coloring

For the actual dough:

3/4 cups + 2 tbsp. of granulated sugar
8 oz. of almond paste
2 1/2 sticks of softened, unsalted butter(I softened my butter at room temperature for 25 minutes)
2 cups of all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. of salt
2/3 tbsp. of applesauce
3/4 cups of aquafaba(chickpea water)(found in 1 pound cans of chickpeas)
An additional 2 tbsp. of granulated sugar
Green food coloring(see helpful link)
Red food coloring(see helpful link)
7 oz. of Apricot preserves
9 oz. of Strawberry preserves
2 oz. of semisweet baking chocolate
Chocolate sprinkles

1. Put the 3/4 cups + 2 tbsp. of granulated sugar into a large bowl.
2. Cut the almond paste into French fry-like strips. Put the almond paste strips into the large bowl and mix the two ingredients together by breaking the almond paste further using a spatula if you're making this dough by hand. You want the resulting mixture to be something that's crumbly.
3. Add the sticks of butter a few pieces at a time into the large bowl. Beat the butter into the almond paste and sugar. A good technique is to use a spatula and butter knife simultaneously. The almond paste and sugar should stick to the butter.
4. In a measuring cup, put the flour in it and then top the flour with the salt. Pour the flour and salt into the butter mixture in the large bowl. Beat everything until it's well combined and looks like a dough.
5. Mix the applesauce into the dough.
6. Drain the liquid from a 1 lb. can of chickpeas into a medium bowl. Retrieve any chickpeas that fall into that bowl.
7. Discard 1/3 cups of the chickpea water. Whisk the rest of the chickpea water until it's foamy.
8. While whisking the foamy chickpea water, add the additional 2 tbsp. of sugar. Whisk the sugar and aquafaba until it forms stiff peaks.
9. Fold 1/4 cup of the whipped chickpea water into the dough in the large bowl.
10. Put the rest of the chickpea water into the dough and fold it into the dough until the dough is fluffy.
11. Divide the dough into 3 small bowls.
12. Set one of the three bowls to the side. This bowl won't be colored.
13. Put gloves on and dip a toothpick into the green food coloring. You don't need that much of it. Stir the green food coloring into the dough in one of the three bowls until the dough is green.
14. Dip a toothpick into the red food coloring. You're going to need even less of it since you want the dough to be a salmon pink color. Stir the red food coloring into the dough in the remaining bowl until the dough is a salmon pink color.
15. Wash and dry the large bowl out completely. Put the pink dough into the large bowl.
16. Top the pink dough with apricot preserves. Smooth the preserves out with a butter knife.
17. Top the apricot preserves with the green dough.
18. Top the white(uncolored) dough with the strawberry preserves. Smooth the preserves out with a butter knife.
19. Top the strawberry preserves with the green dough.
20. Put the semisweet chocolate into the 4th bowl and microwave the chocolate at 20-second intervals until the chocolate is fully melted.
21. Pour the melted chocolate on top of the green dough. Top the melted chocolate with chocolate sprinkles.
22. Put the large bowl into the fridge. Let the chocolate harden and set for 10-15 minutes.
23. Bon appetit!