Cookies and Wreaths! It's Christmas time!!

Ah, Christmas. The time of year for family and friends to come together, share good food, fun, and cheer--and for people to stress the heck out right before everyone comes together to share good food, fun, and cheer.

I've mentioned several times that Sean and I have moved a lot  over the past 6 years or so. This seems to have an adverse impact on the amount of time we spend decorating. When we moved to Alaska we knew it was temporary, so we only brought up our tree and left our tubs and tubs of Christmas decorations in storage.

When we moved to our renovated loft apartment in New York, We put up the tree and a few knick-knacks here and there...but neither of us felt like trying to rent or buy a ladder to hang garlands, and there wasn't much surface area for porcelain Christmas villages and stuffed snowmen and the like, so we just let it go.

At THIS house, though, I was full of plans and dreams. We got our tree up around the first weekend in December. I put a wreath on the door. When my mom shipped me a better wreath, I put that one on the door instead, with plans to put the matching garland up. I went to Michaels and bought some new stuff.

And..... nothing's up. And now we're faced with the fact that we really only have about one week left before we take off to visit family and come back in January. So... the odds of it happening are slim now.

BUT. I blame my lack of decorating on another Christmas tradition. Baking. It's becoming somewhat of a tradition that Sean brings in baked goodie boxes for his team. And I, like a fool, cheerfully volunteer each year. So, this year for his 10-person team, I made this salted chocolate toffee pretzel bark (which is freaking amazing and amazingly simple), peppermint bark (also amazingly simple), spiced rum balls, cut gingerbread cookies, and --by their one request-- red velvet whoopie pies.

And of course I didn't remember to take pictures of any of it until literally everything was all boxed up and all that was left were these "reject" gingerbread cookies. And I want to get something straight... these snowflake cookies look all pretty and I'm proud of them and they were dang tasty...but they were also a ROYAL pain in the keister. Each of those arrow-head holes is made one-by-one with a cutter. So yes.  If you're feeling particularly artsy--by all means! Be my guest! If you're trying to mass-produce an insane number of cookies for 10 treat boxes, you may wish to stick with the smaller flakes or choose a different shape. And your husband might want to go grab you a beer after he hears you muttering in frustration when the dang itty bitty triangle jams up with gingerbread again. And that's before you even frost the suckers. He might want to bust out the vodka for you on that one.

Speaking of frosting, I don't really like royal icing. I think it's gritty and has a strange bitter sort of taste to it. However, I really wanted something with a fluid enough consistency that it could drip through the cracks of the snowflake, and I wanted it to have the side benefit of being hard or crusted. I had plans of piping each cookie with buttercream, but it only took me about three cookie cut-outs to realize that was never going to happen.

I stumbled upon this recipe for glaze, and I tweaked it a bit. I'm sure it's tasty just the way it is in the link, but I added an egg white (even though I don't like it in royal icing) in order to make the glaze crust faster, and then I also added more water until it reached the consistency I wanted. Then I just dipped and flipped the cookies and set them on racks to dry.

       For the glaze:
           1 lb of powdered sugar
           1/4 cup light corn syrup
           1/4 cup water, give or take for your desired consistency
           1 egg white
           Vanilla/almond/lemon/orange/mint extract--whatever you prefer
           Coloring gel, if desired

Basically, add everything together in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Start with a lesser amount of water and add more by the tablespoonful until the desired consistency is reached. If you want multiple colors from your glaze, divide it out into separate containers to color. Pipe, dip and flip, or pour the glaze. Et voila!

And then, as though 10 treat boxes weren't enough, Sean volunteered me to make a dessert for a holiday potluck party at his office. Granted, he knows that it's a pretty safe thing to volunteer me for--and everyone pretty much expects/hopes for a dessert from me anyway.

I wanted something classy that didn't require a TON of effort, so I decided to go with a variation of the winter wreath that can be found in the popular cookbook What's Up, Cupcake? Simply melt some white chips, white melties, or white vanilla-flavored candy coating and use your finger to smooth it on mint leaves. Set the leaves aside on a wax paper-lined cookie sheet and put in the fridge for a few minutes, until set. Slowly and carefully remove the mint leaves from the chocolate. If the chocolate isn't too hot when you slather it on and if you're careful when you peel back the leaves from the chocolate, you can use the leaves to make multiple chocolate molds.

The wreath above is actually two rows of mini cupcakes, but you can do it with regular sized cupcakes. And to tell you the truth, I really ought to have more leaves, but I was too lazy and decided to leave well enough alone. Use M&Ms, Cadbury Holiday Chocolates (pictured), or other candies for the red berries. The wreath also looks pretty with a ribbon or fondant bow.

By the way, this post took me nearly three days to write because, you know, all the stressing. And the baking, and the packing, and the cleaning, and the shopping, and the dog trimming. Maybe that last one is just me.

Merry Christmas, and happy baking!