52 weeks of baking: 51 - gingerbread men

Isn't that just like the perfect shade of dog poo? Don't let that deter you, these cookies are delicious and spicy and festive as heck. Dough or batter of any sort containing molasses just always comes out poo colored. Amusing!

This week has been insanity. Not that that is anything new, that's the story of my dang life, y'all! But this week, I got sick! Figured it would happen soon, you can only go full throttle for so long before your body is like, NOPE. But luckily it kind of worked out, most of the feverish worst of it was on my two days off so I only spent one very long day at work feeling absolutely rotten. So baking was pushed to the end of the week. And it was a close call. I've just worked 24 of the last 48 hours, but I somehow managed to bust out these cookies last night and am throwing them onto the internet before I go to work today.

Also, there is something real funky going on with my camera. The top portion of all the photos is blurry as hell and everything sort of looks like a nineties glamour shot. It's been going on for a while and I have no idea whats up. But everything kind of looks like this:

Oh well, faces are overrated anyway.

For shapes we only did a handful of traditional gingerbread men, and the rest were stars, kitties, and ducks! Because why not?

My royal icing was waaaay watery, but I was too lazy to add more powdered sugar, so we rolled with it. Came out just fine.

Brendon's design's were my favorite. He made a cute dark wing duck with a mask!

Clearly my writing skills have some room to grow. But these cookies are GOOD! Like I said, spicy! There's a good amount of black pepper in them, and it's awesome. I think if I made them again I'd roll them out thicker. I like a softer cookie. They're a little ginger snappish when they're thin, which is yummy, but I'm into chewy cookies generally.

ONE MORE WEEK OF BAKING! Craziness. I probably won't bake or have anything interesting to report until after Christmas (I have three days off next week!!!!), so Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to the internet!

EDIT: I just realized I did NOT include the recipe I used. What the hell? It's a Smitten Kitchen recipe, I'M SORRY, I WAS RUSHED!

52 weeks of baking: 44 - lemon gingerbread muffins

Pumpkin month is over! On to the next holiday season! I found this recipe over the summer on Sally's Baking Addiction and was like omg these sound heavenly, I must make them. So on the first day that it was officially kind of okay to bake something gingerbready, Novemeber 1st, I made them. Specifically because I was holding a holiday meeting at my store and needed a "holiday" treat for a snack. I thought these would be perfect!

I was a tad disappointed in these muffins. This will be the first recipe of Sally's that I raise my eyebrow at. I'm not sure if I screwed something up or what, but these babies are dry. The flavor is great, the lemon and gingerbread combo is phenomenal, but these were extra dry. Maybe they cooked too long? They're very pretty and smell heavenly, but when you bite into it, it's just not what you want in a muffin. Maybe the cook time/temperature just needs a little tweaking on my end. Although something must be said for how high they rose. Sally has this trick where you bake them at high heat (450) for five minutes to get them to rise and then you lower the heat (375) and bake them for the rest of the time. Worked like a charm.

I think they'd be wicked dunked in tea. Chai tea for you spice loving folks or plain black tea like English breakfast for the simpler folks like me. It sounds divine. Anyway, big shout out to my staff for eating them up like champs. I think it was out of politeness, but whatever, I'll take it. ;)