Listen, Geppetto, it wasn’t personal.
Since the Evil Queen burned down the forest, people are starving. We had to get…creative.
We ran out of bread flour two weeks ago. Ariel won’t let us eat any seafood because she knows every damn clam by name. Snow said if we sneak any more eggs out of bird nests she’ll have her squirrel friends tie us down while the birds peck our eyes out. All we really had left were the melted remains of Hansel and Gretel’s gingerbread house, and the last guy who tried to sneak off with a handful of their sugar got an arrow to the knee.
Then the dwarves found a huge colony of crickets down in the mines, and Aurora said she remembered stories about locusts eating all the crops, leaving the peasants so desperate they ground the locusts up into flour. We traded half the cricket flour to Hansel and Gretel. They liked it so much they even threw in the chocolate chips, gratis.
Look, if you don’t want these cookies, I’m taking them home to the wife. Unlike YOUR son, mine actually has to eat. Oh, man. Stop crying, Geppetto. Whoa! Words can hurt, man. I know you don’t mean that. It’s just low blood sugar. Eat something. You’ll feel better, I promise.
Disney Week: Jiminy Cricket’s Chocolate Chirp Cookies
4 ½ cups cricket flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp kosher salt
2 cups softened butter
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
½ tbsp vanilla
4 eggs
2 cups chocolate chips
Don’t think about Jiminy, Gretel. This is plain old flour. He’s probably not even in there. Probably. Just mix the cricket flour with the baking soda and kosher salt and sort of whisk it around.
Okay, I can’t look at it anymore, either. Hand me another bowl. I’m going to really beat this sugar and butter together.
Look, I know you said I shouldn’t take out my anger issues with baking, but if I don’t cream this butter and sugar I’m going to cream the next poacher who tries to sneak off with a chunk of our house. They can go find their own creepy old child-eating witch to kill. God, I wish we still had a hunk of thigh left. Anything but all this sugar.
Alright, alright, I feel better now. Pass me the eggs and vanilla. That’s right. Just dump them right in the bowl and I’ll BEAT THEM INTO SUBMISSION. You hear that, outside! Go ahead! Try to steal another one of our shingles and you’ll get a candy cane arrow in the eye this time! I’ve got my eye on you, Charming!
Okay, Gretel, pass me the bowl of dry goods. We’ll just pour Jiminy’s friends into the mix and stir it all up. Man, this looks just like the dough we used to spackle the windows before the war. Have you scraped a couple cups of chocolate off the door frame? Great. Mix them right in.
I’ll take the crossbow if you want to scoop balls of dough onto the baking sheets.
The oven’s still at 375F. Aurora said cricket cookies bake in 8-10 minutes, same as regular flour ones. We’ll find out if they taste the same once the smell draws people in. YOU BETTER COME READY TO TRADE THIS TIME, GRUMPY! Otherwise, I’m sending Lumiere where the sun don’t shine, and you know he’s got a fiery temper!
(Makes 2 dozen chirpy cookies.)
SO YOU DON’T LIVE IN A DYSTOPIAN FAIRY TALE KINGDOM.
I tried cricket cookies for the first time at South by Southwest. The good folks from Bitty Foods brought their high protein, gluten-free, paleo cookies for us to sample, and I was seriously impressed. I honestly thought there had to be either wheat flour or almond meal in there somewhere. If you have celiac disease, are on a strict low-carb diet, or are hardcore paleo, I recommend you give them a try.
Here in Austin, I can get cricket flour at in.gredients. (Not a typo. In a town like Austin, this is how a totally legitimate business spells its name.)
If you live in a major metro area or a seriously liberal town, you can probably find some at whatever local grocery makes Whole Foods look like a Safeway. You know the place. Within a year, some of the local cricket ranchers hope to have their products available on the internet.
Eating crickets may sound kind of gross at first, but once they’re ground up into flour, the end result looks like every other powdered substance in your kitchen cabinet. If you can forget those videos of pink slime while you’re eating chicken nuggets, trust me, you can forget pictures of Jiminy Cricket while you’re eating what tastes like a slightly better than average health food cookie. Be bold! Be daring! Eat a bug!
Need more Disney-tastic recipes?
Regina’s Poisonously Good Apple Tart
Elsa’s Frozen Lemon Ginger Braid
Maleficent’s Evil Surprise Pops
Snow White Squares
Jiminy Cricket’s Chocolate Chirp Cookies
Tinkerbell’s Absinthe Tinkle
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