Christmas Cookies and a Giant Mess
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!
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Those cookies look so great! I'm so excited you like your fun goodies! On wednesday my mom, sister and I are going to decorate cookies with royal icing. I'm nervous! I've never used royal icing before on cookies! I hope mine look half as good as yours!
He is definitely a keeper! Your cookies are adorable. I'm going to try the same royal icing on gingerbread cookies, this week.
How beautiful are those cookies!? And you got your sweetie to decorate? What a man! Real men decorate cookies!
Fun!! I love the psychedelic snowman.
I just learned how to make royal icing and flood icing a couple weeks ago, and a friend and I are going to attempt it for our New Years party. I'm a little nervous about getting the flood icing to be liquidy–but not too liquidy–just like you're saying.
It'll work lovely I"m sure Jenna! I saw your post, I'm sure all of those women the visited the Lodge taught you all the tricks to make a great frosting. Just be patient – which is always the hardest part. It'll still make a gorgeous cookie regardless – most people won't recognize the imperfections in your frostings. (Though it's hard to convince yourself of this, trust me I"m the same way!) Promise!