Nigaoe(Caricature) Cookies

“Nigaoe(似顔絵)”(ni-gah-oh-eh) is a caricature. It’s a portrait realistically drawn by capturing or deforming the appearance and characteristics of a person. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always loved drawing nigaoe. I find people’s faces fascinating. It’s the wrinkles, the freckles, and the idiosyncrasies on their faces that I find them so beautiful. And the more unique their faces are, the more I find joy in drawing them. Perhaps it’s not the people’s faces I love; -it’s the stories behind their faces.

One of the many traditions I follow is that I make nigaoe cookies for my friend’s birthday. I absolutely love gifting, and it’s just my way of expressing my love and devotion for my dear people.

This is my good friend Hui. I wanted to capture his shy-yet-geeky personality into a cookie and here’s the result:
Joy is in the making…. To make the Nigaoe Cookies, you will need these 3 things:

1. 1. Cookie ingredients
   2. A bit of crafting skill
   3. Natural food dye

Being able to make natural food dye has been a rejuvenating addition of my life. I can not believe how easy that is to borrow the colors of nature; the most healthy and nutritious food-dye you can ever find. Using artificial food dye is the quickest, but there will be no soul in my food if I use it. I’d rather put my soul into my cookies especially when it’s a gift for my people.

Here is how:

1: Gather all the ingredients.
Also start heating your oven to 170C/340F.
2: Melt the butter and mix with brown sugar.
I prefer melted butter for these cookies. Mix the sugar now as well.

3: Mix all the ingredients.
It’s the vanilla extract and brandy that make the taste. Mix all the ingredients until they are all combined.

4: Separate the dough into 4 parts.
・Reguler color for the skin
・Pink color for the mouth
・Green color for the scarf
・Brown color for the hair5: Color the dough.
Using only natural ingredients, you can actually color the dough. Natural stuff; –I’m a huge fan.

The lemon-flavored color of pink comes from cranberries and beetroots, the radiant color of green coms from matcha, brown is, of course, cocoa powder. 6: Crating time.
Find the comfiest table with your favorite music and start working on making the cutest cookies in the world. Your imagination is the key to the masterpiece. Make sure your dough is moist enough, otherwise the little pieces like eyes and nose might fall off after baking. I usually add just a bit of water if my dough is too dry.Depending on my friends’ personality, I changed the facial expressions on each cookie. This one I’m working on is my beautiful friend Takky, she always has a big smile on her face.Glasses were so hard to put on top of the face! I baked 6 people this time, including myself. I really didn’t want us to look beheaded, so I added a scarf after. A matcha scarf.

7: Bake for 20 minutes.
Your oven should be ready for 170C/340F. Bake on the lowest shelf for 20 minutes. Try not to over-bake, otherwise, all your friends would look sunburned.
Say, can you remain calm when you are baking? I can’t. I’m too excited. I’m always spotted in front of my oven like this. I’m so restless when I bake.

7: Voilla. You are done!
Oh my goodness, they look cute. Really cute!

This is Erin. He makes this face when he’s being sarcastic. He’s also got this stylish hairstyle whenever I see him.

Eating those cookies is a pure massacre. I always feel guilty about eating it.
My last bite. It looks something like this. #judgementisintheair
If you could ever try gifting those cookies to your loved one, I think the world looks a little better than what it was before. If just thinking about the smiles on their face already make you warm and tender, then you should totally try making Nigaoe Cookies to someone you care about. And if you do, please please please send me an email with your pictures! xx

Good luck in the kitchen.
-Yuki