Crazy for Cookies!

As part of my very Christmas-y week, I spent two days baking cookies and one day delivering all my baked goods.  On Tuesday I made gingerbread man dough.  This is a special dough as it is a recipe I was given in Norway so it is very authentic!  I wasn't able to make the cookies until Wednesday but that is okay.  On Tuesday I also made some brownie cookies and gave them some snow and I made the famous Grant family fudge (see the recipe on the back of the marshmallow creme for this famous recipe).  

Wednesday was an even bigger baking day with making and decorating the gingerbread men, some pecan pie bars, and some mini-chip snowball cookies.  I also had to package all of these up nicely so they could be delivered as quickly and freshly as possible.

Here are my gingerbread men.  You start out by cooking the molasses and sugar and adding some baking soda until it foams.

Here is the dough.

I have already discussed the trick for cut out cookies on my blog previously but I will discuss it again since it has been awhile.  Whenever you have to refrigerate dough that you will be rolling out and cutting with cookie cutters, save yourself some time and roll it out in between sheets of cellophane while it is fresh.  Then, you put it in the fridge and let it solidify (overnight usually).  When you pull it out of the fridge the next day, it is ready and there is no frustration in trying to roll out a nearly freezing chunk of dough.  Just make sure you lie it flat so that it doesn't have any ridges or weird lumps from things in your fridge. 

I thought this was a pretty picture.  It shows my process.  I often spray my counter with cooking spray before laying down the flour, that makes it stick to the counter better and I have to use less flour.

Of course it is always hard to use all the dough to make cut out cookies.  And since I can't/won't eat the dough, I was pretty proud of my accomplishment...here are my scraps.

My beautiful gingerbread cookies out of the oven.  Unfortunately I burned one batch of them (you can see them in the right hand corner) but I still had enough to give to everyone I wanted to.  I made hearts, gingerbread men and women, holly leaves, and snowflakes.  I kept it simple for the sake of time.  

I made a glaze for frosting these cookies and when I sat down to start, I found the frosting was too thick!  How could this be??  I am just not as expert at frosting making as I used to be.  A sad day for me indeed.  So I ended up dumping it all out of the first bag, adding some water and putting it all in a new bag.  It went so much better after that and my hand wasn't cramping anymore.  Here is a sampling; I decorated them all pretty much the same way, also for the sake of time.  From what I hear, they were a hit.

Here are my brownie cookies with snow on them.  The only response I got about these from my dear husband was that they were rich.  Of course they were rich; they are brownie cookies!  That's why they are small!

Similarly, here are my mini-chip snow ball cookies, also with some snow.  These are kind of like shortbread cookies.

And my new recipe of the Christmas season was pecan pie bars.  I am trying to get rid of some of the things in my freezer and I happened to buy a bunch of pecans last year in the bargain area.  So I needed to make something with pecans and I found this recipe in one of my cookbooks.  I didn't get to taste them but people have said they tasted good so I can only hope that they really are good.  They certainly looked and smelled good.

Here is all my stuff as I prepare the dough.  The crust is baking in the oven already.  

The finished bars.  They smelled very delicious.  Unfortunately I made lunch right afterward and killed the beautiful smell, but oh well.  

This is what they look like on the inside.  They have corn syrup, eggs, pecans, and chocolate chips (and some other things).  

And last of all, here is my mess as I packaged all of these wonderful goodies.  You can also see my fudge in this one.  It's the one that looks like fudge.

I had a great time baking and decorating and delivering this year.  But I am always glad when it is all over.  Spreading Christmas cheer can be some good, hard work!