Christmas Cookie Roundup I

Get ready for cookie overload!

This year, I thought I'd have lots of time for baking. I wasn't going to have to contend with final exams. We were only doing one leg of the midwestern whistlestop tour. I was going to be a lovely hostess for a week. So I surveyed last year, and started planning.

Of course, when you're in school and it's time for exams, you will find that your room/house/apartment is never cleaner. Procrastination wasn't on my side this year. Especially not when I had a guest bedroom and bathroom to finish up with all those nice touches like ... sheets. And curtains.

But, I wasn't going to let that stop me. And we'll start with the gingerbread.

Every year I make a batch of gingerbread using the edict of Oracle Betty. And every year the result is something to the effect of "@!#$% that's a lot of dough!!!" So, instead of building a complete gingerbread army, I split it up a little.

Of course, there were the gingerbread men. And women, this year. I made them in little couples, but didn't get very far in decorating before I ran out of time. These guys made it.



Some of the gingerbread ... people didn't get decorated per se. Some of them got chocolate-ified! My mother in law sent us this video on producing Christmas at Disney World (an online video, no less, since we're still to cheap for cable). Andy saw the chocolate-backed shingles of the gingerbread house there, and thought that might make gingerbread worth eating!

We didn't do the glaze, though, and to be honest I accidentally put double the ginger in than was called for. Don't worry, it was still good!

So that accounts for some of the dough. And the rest?

Now this is about the only kind of construction I can get in to. No kit involved! I did use a paper template to cut out the pieces before baking them, and I do wish I'd made the roof a little larger. I got the idea for the pecan shingles from a blog, but there were so many gingerbread houses that I forget where I saw it originally. And then I saw someone had made a gingerbread model of their house, and UGH! I wish I'd seen it before I'd baked the pieces.

Yes, that recipe really does make that much!

Next, the verdict on whether butter is better ...