Gingerpeople, to be politically correct

I don't personally like gingerbread that much. I find it a little bit bland, like it needs to be sweeter or something. It does, however, make excellent cutout shapes which is why I continue to make it year after year.
This year seems to be a defining year for me in terms of my design and execution skills; last year my decorating cookies were a hot mess, but this year? Excellence. My pumpkin carving skills seem to have undergone the same transformation, but that's another story for an unexpected and hilarious time.
On Tuesday night I decorated sugar cookies with my mother until my student came for tutoring, and then once all students had been dismissed and my mom had gone to bed, I hunkered down in front of the TV with a rack full of gingerbread men (people, persons, its?) and two squeeze bottles of royal icing (note to all cookie decorating enthusiasts: THIS WAS THE BEST DECISION EVER! I will continue to use squeeze bottles instead of icing bags for as long as I only need straight semi-thin lines), a glass of milk and both Home Alone 1 and 2, and off I went until 1:30 in the morning.

I didn't get all of them finished, but what I did get done I quite enjoyed. I'll either finish the rest when I get back from my weekend in Rochester, or leave it up to mom to finish. Regardless, enjoy my pictures. I'm becoming a more efficient cookie-roller, and had all the gingerbread men rolled, baked and cooled in just inside of an hour.

I'm going to go curl up in my warm bed now and settle down for a long winter's nap.

-Laur

Classic Gingerbread Cutouts:

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup molasses
2 eggs
4 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until smooth. Stir in the molasses and eggs. Combine 1 1/2 cups of the flour, baking soda, salt, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger; beat into the molasses mixture. Gradually stir in the remaining flour by hand to form a stiff dough.
3. Divide dough into 2 pieces. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes using cookie cutters. Place cookies 1 inch apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.
4. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Cookie countdown

So here's my first round of cookies: blue snowflakes. I think they're really pretty, and they happen to taste really great, too. The cookie cutter set came with 8 shapes but three of them are weird little tiny things that aren't much use. The biggest one, top left, is about the size of my hand and very sturdy. I made up a batch of Royal Icing to decorate them with, but didn't finish the job; I'll be using white icing and pretty sugar to complete the effect.
Here's the recipe for the cookies:

Best Rolled Sugar Cookies by Jill Saunders

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Directions
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.













And now for the Royal Icing recipe:

Royal Icing by Veronica

Ingredients
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 egg whites, beaten
Directions
In a bowl, sift together confectioners' sugar and cream of tartar. Using electric mixer, beat in 2 beaten egg whites for about 5 minutes or until mixture is thick enough to hold its shape.
I think this post is going to look a little strange, but what can you do.
Do you like my little Christmas tree? Or Hanukkah bush? It's blue and white, but it's a tree, so I suppose it transcends the lines of holiday religion. I like it, anyhow.

Happy baking!

-Laur

Christmas time is here

It's December 1st. Well, it's almost over, but today was mostly December 1st. I've been ignoring my blog because of Nanowrimo, but that's over. I didn't win. I hated my book. Oh well, serves me right for not planning.
So today I decorated the house a little bit and baked half a batch of snowflake-shaped sugar cookies. They're really awesome snowflakes, and I'm going to bake and decorate the rest of them tomorrow. Mom and I also made the awesome centrepiece to your left, and we'll probably put it in the front vestibule to be festive and such. But only if I can find a table to put it on.
The other pictures are ones I doctored up with Picnik after my friend Samantha and I went to the Santa Clause Parade on November 15th. It was an almost balmy day and the parade was lovely and short, about 2 hours long, and we had a good spot right at St. George station across from the Bata Shoe Museum. We could see everything, and afterwards we went for a little window-shop in Yorkville.
I'm taking my holiday baking very seriously this year, and starting tomorrow I'm going to blog my cookie recipes and photos every time I bake a new kind.
Cheers!
-Laur