Gingerbread Cookies!

So as it is officially the Christmas season, I decided to make gingerbread cookies! Yay!

I started to make it from scratch and was gathering all of my ingredients when my mom suddenly remembered that she had a “loaf” of gingerbread dough from Pillsbury in the fridge. So, being the resourceful person that I am, I decided to use the premade dough.

Now don’t think, “Wow, she made a cooking blog and she isn’t even going to make anything.” No, I am just starting out small. Plus, the recipe required molasses and we didn’t have any and it was raining and I didn’t want to go to the store. So I have many excuses reasons for not making the dough.

My first problem was before I even touched the dough. I had turned on the oven and was beginning to prepare the dough, when all of a sudden my mom shouts, “Did you take the wok out of the oven?” O.O  I quickly moved to the oven, opened it and there it was. I took it out and boy was it hot.

Now this oven is new and what my brother and I love about it is that it makes this little chime when it is at the right temperature. So, being the total dorks that we are, we decided to videotape it. My brother had set it up and was filming the oven before it hit 325 degrees. Can you guess what happened next? It was at this moment that my mother decides to remind me of the wok in the oven. So…the entire escapade is on video.

Another thing, USE FLOUR!!! Like on everything! I opened up the package and it said to roll it out to a ¼  inch thickness. So I grab the rolling pin and start to roll out half of it. It’s going fine and then all of a sudden it starts sticking to the rolling pin. Then I scrape it off and it is sticking to me and then it is sticking to the mat that I had used to roll it on. It was horrible. So my brother being the smart aleck that he is comes over and says, “ Didn’t you use flour? Wow, you didn’t even know to use that, you are a horrible baker.” Thanks for the self esteem boost, bro.

After that setback was fixed, I took my little cookie cutter and made the little cookies, placed them in the oven and waited. When they were done I took them out, allowed them to cool and then made the next set of gingerbread cookies.

For these ones, my brother helped me and he decided he was going to roll the other half of the dough. Let me just say that karma works in AMAZING ways. So he takes out the other half and he puts flour on it, the rolling pin and the cookie mat thing (I don’t know what else to call it!) So its working and then I don’t know what happened but then it decided to start sticking to the pin again. But this time it was worse.

So mine looked like this too, but his was by far worse.

We cut out the cookies and baked them. I pulled them out and for some idiotic reason I took the spatula and began to scoop up a cookie. Note to self: DON'T DO THAT! My poor gingerbread man was beheaded.  I still kept him, but now he wasn't a beautiful, happy and mainly a whole cookie.   

After I let the others cool it was time to DECORATE!  

Decorating is hard. It got all over my hands and the table and if I messed up on the cookie it left streaks on it. Horrible, just horrible. But in the end I am pretty happy with the way they turned out. To tell you the truth, I am actually eating one of the cookies as I type this, and they are good!

Here is the frosting that I used:
1 c. powdered sugar
1/4 t vanilla extract
1 T milk

*It is really runny when you first make it, but (as I found out later, after I had made the cookies) you can add more of the sugar to make it thicker.

Lessons Learned:
1. Take out the wok.
2. Flour is my new best friend.
3. Be patient or else you will have dead gingerbread men.