Cookie Icing

Do you ever just have those days where nothing goes right?  Today was one of them for me.  My icing was too thick and I ran out of milk, I don't think my cookies look like mushrooms, but that isn't going to keep me from eating them. I'm trying to decide if my crochet Christmas tree really looks like a tree?  I make a To Do list everyday and I couldn't even get half of the list done.

I'm going to put this icing recipe out and I'm going to go sulk and make myself feel better and eat all my cookies in one sitting and try again tomorrow.

Icing

Ingredients:

One cup of confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons of softened butter
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
Milk
Food Coloring
Sprinkles or whatever you use to decorate your cookies with.  There are tons out there.

Look I couldn't even get all the ingredients pictured, or forgot to take pictures.

I put the sugar, butter and vanilla in a plastic bag and squish, squish, and squish, until mixed well.  Then I add increments of about a tablespoon of milk until I get the thickness that I want.  Unfortunately, I ran out, so my cookies were more or less frosted.  Better luck tomorrow, I say.   

Once you have the consistency that you are looking for, add your food coloring.  I made two batches of icing, one with red food coloring and one with no food coloring.  I put in about thirty drops of the red food coloring.  

Then you just decorate your cookies.  Snip a small piece of the plastic off at the bottom of one of the corners of the bag. I'm no expert on decorating.  All I can say is make an outline and then put the icing on the inside and the consistency of your icing should be thin enough to shake the cookie and fill the inside, or you should be able to use a toothpick to spread it out.  Mine was more like frosting.  Do you think that's going to keep me from eating them,  NO WAY.  

Be sure and let the icing firm up a little before applying a different color.  I didn't have to do that with mine.  If you are going to add any type of sprinkles and what not, do it right after you put the icing on, and push it into the icing, so it will hold.  

Look at those poor things.  I think they look like red lollipop trees.

They still taste delicious!!!

I think it is ok to share a little bit of my bad.  Hopefully, Santa just sees the writing on the plate.  

Hope your day was smother then mine,

Debra

Gingerbread Cookies

I am going to do this in two series, or it becomes an all day process for me, and I know, we all have a lot to do during the Holidays.

These are nice in the aspect that you can break this down to a three day project and include family members or attend to other projects.

Mix one day, bake the next, ice the following day.

Here we go:

Ingredients:

3/4 cup of brown sugar
3/4 cup of butter softened
3.4 oz of instant butterscotch pudding
1 egg
2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 tablespoon of ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

Beat the butter, sugar, egg and pudding mix until well mixed in a large bowl. I soften the butter for 10 second intervals in the microwave, so that my butter is more of a liquid.  This helps break down the sugar.

I pour about a third of the flour, baking soda, ground ginger and ground cinnamon and mix in the bowl with the butter sugar mixture.  By the time I get to the last third, I mix with my hands.  If it is a little too dry, I just wet my hands with water, if too wet, then just a little bit more flour.

Once you have the consistency of dough you need, refrigerate this for at least one hour.

Heat your oven to 350 degrees.
Roll out the dough on a floured surface.  I roll this out to about 1/4 inch thick.  Using your cookie cutters cut out shapes and place on an greased cookie sheet. (I'm making mushroom this year, so I am using an egg shaped cookie cutter and a heart) I use the Pampered Chef stoneware, so I have noticed, I never have to grease.  Some of my pieces are so seasoned from using over and over they are so dark brown, I dare not show, but they do the best job.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned.  

 Cool on baking pan for at least 3 minutes and once cooled transfer these to wire racks.  I let them cool for at least and hour before I start decorating.  

So once you have all this done, and they are completely cooled, place them in an airtight container and come back tomorrow and we will start to decorate our cookies!!!


Don't eat any!!! Well, maybe just one!!!

adapted from the recipes of: http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/gingerbread-people-62218.aspx

See you tomorrow,

Debra