The girls helped me make gingerbread babies tonight, and they lavished their cookies with every possible candy decoration.
While we waited for dear husband to finish up dinner, we read Jan Brett's "Gingerbread Friends" and "Gingerbread Babies." Sitting there on the couch, with my daughters, in a flour covered apron, was the highlight of my weekend. Because this recipe
makes so many cookies, I also cut out a whole host of autumn
gingerbread shapes: leaves, squirrels, acorns, apples, and turkeys.
I used these cookie cutters to use up the scraps, and have a container full of tiny cut out bears (for a teddy bear picnic perhaps) and another with the noah's ark menagerie (perfect for a quiet Sunday afternoon) tucked away in the freezer.
I really think there are two secrets to perfect gingerbread--black pepper, although I only used 1/2 t. in this batch, and refrigerating the cut out cookies before baking. A good 15 minutes in the fridge means that the cookies keep their shape in the oven, and they'll come out looking Martha Stewart perfect.
From tonight's dinner: want to know how to make the world's best bechamel sauce? It's not what you might think...
