Gingerbread Cookies

Niece and I made a GINORMOUS batch of gingerbread cookies last week. I was really anxious to try decorating them with Royal Icing, hope to achieve something at least approaching the beautiful, bright look of cookies I've seen on various blogs. Well... not so much around here. My Royal Icing pretty much failed, because it was way too thin and I used all the powdered sugar in the house trying to fix it! Oh well, c'est la vie... I did learn something, and I'll try again before too long.

We used a very mild gingerbread recipe that we got from Nephew's math book last year. I know, hilarious, right?! It was in a lesson on fractions, and when Nephew was at that point in the book, he brought it home and actually wanted to bake the cookies, which we did. Both kids like these cookies because they don't have a super-strong taste, and there is no molasses.  If I were choosing, I would make this recipe, as the addition of cloves and fresh nutmeg sounds wonderful.

We used Martha Stewart's Royal Icing, and I really don't think my failure was due to the recipe. Just add the water SLOWLY and start with less than the called-for amount!

Here's the photographic record of our decorating adventures:

 Piles of cookies, waiting to be decorated!

 Niece at work, organizing the colors.

 I did these green ones.

 

Black sprinkle sugar gets into EVERYTHING! I love the penguin cookies, though.

Concentrating intently....

~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)