I am not sure why, but I expected the dough to be soft and easy to work with once out of the fridge. Wrong. It was hard, very hard and I wondered if I left it in too long. I thought I had ruined the whole batch and would have to go through that whole process again, immediately thinking about how I was going to avoid the smell of the molases.
As I started working with the dough it began to soften up and spread out. I took my handy rolling pin and rolled it out on the fancy parchment paper I bought for the occasion. Once I got it all rolled out to my desired thickness, I used my cute little cutter to cut out the shapes of the men. Here, have a look:
As I was punching them out, I was concerned because the dough had a bit of a wood grain type appearance and it didn't seem right. I still thought I might have mucked up my whole project. I just decided to keep going and see what would happen. After I got them all punched out, I then baked them for about 8 minutes and voila! They looked like real gingerbread men!
After a few batches of the men, it was time to give them their gear. Have you ever seen the show 'Ace of Cakes'? It is on TLC and it is a show that takes place in a bakery somewhere in NJ or PA. Anyway, they make the most amazing cakes you can imagine and they are always using this stuff called fondant. I saw some in the store the other day and felt like this would be a great way to decorate these little suckers. Fondant comes in these packages that look lik 'Das' (remember that clay stuff from when you are a kid?) and it is basically an edible type of play-doh that you can roll out and use it to either cover a cake or make all kinds of decorations on for your cookies or cake. In my case, it was going to become a jersey and hockey pants.
I rolled out the blue fondant and began cutting out the jersey's. It was quite easy and it was going to work out great. Here is a look at the process:
I then rolled out the red fondant and did the same for the pants:
The most tedious part of the whole process was making the numbers. I used the white fondant for that and had to roll out a 'worm' and then shape the numbers. It wouldn't have been bad if more of the jackets numbers were 11, 14, 17, etc...but there were lots of 2's, 5's, and 8's which made it difficult. In the end, however I think it was worth it! The finish product looks like this:
As I was punching them out, I was concerned because the dough had a bit of a wood grain type appearance and it didn't seem right. I still thought I might have mucked up my whole project. I just decided to keep going and see what would happen. After I got them all punched out, I then baked them for about 8 minutes and voila! They looked like real gingerbread men!
After a few batches of the men, it was time to give them their gear. Have you ever seen the show 'Ace of Cakes'? It is on TLC and it is a show that takes place in a bakery somewhere in NJ or PA. Anyway, they make the most amazing cakes you can imagine and they are always using this stuff called fondant. I saw some in the store the other day and felt like this would be a great way to decorate these little suckers. Fondant comes in these packages that look lik 'Das' (remember that clay stuff from when you are a kid?) and it is basically an edible type of play-doh that you can roll out and use it to either cover a cake or make all kinds of decorations on for your cookies or cake. In my case, it was going to become a jersey and hockey pants.
I rolled out the blue fondant and began cutting out the jersey's. It was quite easy and it was going to work out great. Here is a look at the process:
I then rolled out the red fondant and did the same for the pants:
The most tedious part of the whole process was making the numbers. I used the white fondant for that and had to roll out a 'worm' and then shape the numbers. It wouldn't have been bad if more of the jackets numbers were 11, 14, 17, etc...but there were lots of 2's, 5's, and 8's which made it difficult. In the end, however I think it was worth it! The finish product looks like this:
Tomorrow I will get the tree and decorate it up and let you all see a picture of the finished product. I think this tree will definitely trump our last years' tree in terms of decor, but I have a strong suspicion that we will need to add the 'lunch with the coaches' as our ace in the hole.
2 comments:
Good job sis, you're starting to get all Martha on me. I'm very impressed with your artistic skills!! Go Jackets!
Nicely done. I bid uhh.. $10?
Those are the coolest cookies ever. You have exceeded my artistic capablities by a long shot.
So are you preparred to modify the cookies in the event of a trade?
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