Misc

Back in November J and I were wondering around the Superstore looking at all the new Christmas stuff that had just arrived, when I came across a stack of red boxes. J picked it up and I got pretty excited to see that it was a box of cookie cutters that creates a cookie tree. I thought J was just going to laugh and put it down but he asked if I wanted it…heck yes!!

Last night I decided to make my tree. I was a little worried because I am not really a baker and this involved ginger bread cookie dough but the recipe didn’t look too intimidating. I even slightly changed the recipe, which I am not sure you’re supposed to do but it worked.  I just took out some of the corn syrup and added molasses to darken up the dough. The recipe came in the box, so I don’t really know how close it is to actual ginger bread. I am sure you can use your own handed down recipe instead.

Ingredients

• 5 1/2 cups All purpose flour
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups corn syrup
• 1 1/2 sugar
• 1 1/4 unsalted butter
• 1/2 milk

1. In a large bowl, sift together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, ginger and salt. Set aside. 2. In a large microwave safe container, heat corn syrup and butter in microwave on HIGH for 2-3 min, until butter is melted. Stir in milk. Pour over dry ingredients. With Hands, work into a smooth sticky dough ball. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and chill 4 hours until dough is very firm and cold. 3. Preheat oven to 325 F. Line 5 baking sheets with parchment paper. Divide dough into 3 portions. Cover and refrigerate portions not in use. On lightly floured surface, roll dough to 1/4 inch thick. Cut out two stars of each size, place on a baking sheet. To reduce the amount of dough needed, use a smaller star to cut out the center of a larger star. 4. Bake 2 sheets at a time, in the center of over. Larger stars take 18 min and smaller stars 12-14. (I cooked them all for 15 min and it worked fine). Rotate sheets halfway through cooking time. Cookies can be stores in airtight container for 3 days.

Now the fun part was decorating the tree. I really wanted those little silver balls that people used to decorate cookies with, and also shown in the picture on the box but I couldn’t find them anywhere. Instead I just used green sprinkles and an icing sugar glaze.

Glaze

• 2 cups icing sugar
• 3 tbsp milk.

Stir together and drizzle over cookies.

The glaze was super easy, 2 ingredients can’t get any simpler. I outlined all the cookies and then filled in the cookies. To do that I just spooned on the glaze inside the outline and with a wooden skewer I just pushed the glaze where I wanted it (closer to the edges) and gravity makes sure it’s even and smooth. The outline just creates a barrier for the glaze as I didn’t really want it to run off the cookies.

So after about an hour and a half of glazing and sprinkling the finished product! I don’t think it will last very long with J in the house but it was fun to do.