After reading all about the endless cookie making everyone is doing this time of year, I felt compelled to jump on the bandwagon, and drag along Ben with me. He’s such a good sport.

For the sugar cookies themselves, I whipped up Haley’s (at The Girly Girl Cooks) recipe. She’s such a doll, and as a prize for winning her first giveaway, I got a ton of great cookie making swag. Her recipe was delish, the cookie cutters were adorable, and the gingerbread men measuring spoons – Hello, splendid!

All the cookies cutters got splayed out along the counter. Haley’s are the precious brown gingerbread man, the ever so green evergreen tree and the sparkly white snowflake cutter. I added in an ornament, a snowman, and a star to the mix. It worked out for a well balanced Christmas scene.

And as my dough was cut and baking, I whipped up some royal frosting. I’m always hesitant to make royal frosting, not because of the egg – I use meringue powder – but because if it’s overly whipped it’s crusty, and with all of the air that can get added in, it dries out even faster. Best trick is the wrap your mixer with very damp paper towels or hand towels. It’ll help stop the air-incorporation and excess drying. 

Now, Wilton colors are not AmeriColor tints – but for this they do the trick. After the Firehouse Cake and the disgusting red disaster, I’ll be switching colorings when I work through these. 
Ben helped me prep my flood icing whipping in some lightly tinted colors, trying to avoid that weird artificial taste. Blagh! The red didn’t turn out so red, and I wasn’t about to have him add more color to the frosting and leave it bitter. It turned out more pink than anything, but it’s the spirit that counts, right?

We got to decorating and having some wintery Seattle fun. Now with my nervousness about icings, they did still turn out a little too stiff. And I was too nervous to water them down too much to create a proper flood icing. Either way – it worked…

Ben created some psychedelic snowmen, and after that I couldn’t help but join in on the fun with a couple crazy stars and an ornament that looks more like the Pepsi symbol than anything else… (see below). 

Either way it was fun, messy and good quality time for me and my hunny. Man am I glad he humors me with all of this cute couple-y crap. He’s a keeper.

Happy Christmas and lots and lots of cookies to you and yours!