C is for Cookie (and for Cabana)
Around these parts, all it's been doing is raining raining RAINING. So I spent the weekend, grateful to be indoors, baking and decorating cookies to take to parties and give as gifts. We also made this gingerbread house. My younger daughter got to do the decorating. Didn't she do a fabulous job? I love her gumdrop/marshmallow topiaries.
Cabana is NOT a counter surfer. She has never put her paws up on our tables or kitchen counters (although I have seen her leaping up onto tables at our puppy group--of course, she saves her embarrassing behavior to keep me humble out in public). For some reason, this gingerbread house piqued Cabana's curiosity to no end. I had it on top of a high ledge in our entryway (I only put it on the kitchen table for this photograph), and Cabana would stand by it, looking up at the gingerbread house, wagging her tail, and making little sounds. Because the ledge was low enough that Cabana could easily jump up and reach the gingerbread house, I moved it to the top of a high bookshelf, not wanting it to be too much temptation for her. But even on the bookshelf, Cabana kept showing us with her wagging tail and great interest that she felt the gingerbread house should belong to her. She's never done this before, so I found it quite amusing.
A friend recently turned me onto Bake@350, a blog about cookie decorating. I have always loved making and decorating sugar cookies, but this blog took me to the next level in desiring sugar cookie perfection. I used the sugar cookie recipe posted on the blog. They were so easy and they taste great.
I made a double batch of royal icing. Then I scooped out small amounts and colored them with food coloring gel. I like to use small ziplock bags for decorating. I just chop off a tiny corner of the bag and squeeze the icing out. The top row is outline consistency (thick). The bottom row is flood consistency (thin). 
Here are the cookies in various stages of progress. It takes a long time (hours!) and lots of patience. If you rush it, the cookies don't turn out as pretty.
Voila! Some of our finished masterpieces. They still aren't as perfect as the ones on the Bake@350 blog, but oh well. After all, who really wants to eat a perfect cookie? If it's too perfect, you want to save it forever. If it's not-quite-perfect, you don't feel so bad about chomping the head off a snowman--AND it also means they don't have any calories. Bet you didn't know that, did you?!
