Cookies, Cookies, Cookies!!

We are family...I got all my sistahs with me...

The girls and I spent the day making yummilicious Gingerbread cookies.  Now, in all of our years of cookiedom, and believe me, we've made some cookies....we've never attempted shaped gingerbread cookies.  I admit, I was a little anxious about tackling this project.  I know, it's only a cookie, but the thought of decapitating a poor innocent little hunk of would-be-deliciousness put a lump in my throat.  Oh, and then there's my little issue with patience....ahem....okay, I'll just 'fess up here.  Those who know me, know that there's the very real chance that I could get completely ticked off and chunk the entire thing, bowl and all, in the trash...and some unChristmaslike words might be uttered....hypothetically speaking.

But no, 'tis the Season and I was determined to do this.  Armed with a wonderful recipe (Gingerbread Boys) brought to my attention by my dear friend, Lynn (who later wimped out on me and didn't even make the darned things herself), the girls and I began our project.  (One note, I did change the recipe a bit...didn't add as much orange zest, and substituted molasses for the corn syrup.)



All tan and ready to be dressed.  Right now they just look like the cast of
Jersey Shore, all brown and naked.

The rolling out process was a bit of a pain because the dough needs to be really cold to cut easily.  I rolled between two pieces of wax paper (read this on the allrecipes website) and that made things much less messy.  Baked the little boogers and....well you see in the picture above how they came out.  Not perfect, but at least nobody lost a limb.

Betty and Don Draper

We had such fun decorating them and giving them their own unique personality.  I went with a Mad Men theme sans cigarettes and whiskey.  To decorate, I used a basic stiff Royal Icing recipe to pipe the outlines, then made a much looser batch to fill in using the color flow technique.  

Gotta have a team right....and yes, that's CP3 (uh, Chris Paul...New Orleans Hornets for you foreigners).   And before anyone asks...I'm ashamed to admit there's no Drew Brees...or any Saints players at all.  I didn't have black food coloring for the uniforms....I know...I've brought shame upon the Who Dat Nation.  My head is appropriately bowed.  I will not let it happen again.

Harry Potter

Devan even made Harry Potter.  Check out that wicked scar.

All in all, not bad for our first try.  I just don't know if we can bring ourselves to eat any of them.  They're like family at this point.

We also made a batch of Cappuccino Blossoms, and since these involve dark chocolate, well, they're pretty much medicinal what with dark chocolate being good for your heart, flavonoids, antioxidants, free radicals, blah, blah, blah.

Cappuccino Blossoms

They are, quite simply, Heaven in cookie form.

So, go pour yourself a big glass of ice cold milk and lick your monitor. 

Merry Christmas!!