Better Cookies Made with Love and Glee

So, in my abundant free time, I often watch people's children, thus fulfilling my quota for social interactions until the next week. I get along pretty well with children, considering I have the maturity of a four-year-old most of the time, but sometimes there's a problem keeping them entertained in a way I never was a kid, meaning, let's not plop them in front of the TV for six hours and then we'll talk to them. This time, instead of running around in the freezing cold and possibly breaking some bones on the hazardous ice, I decided we should make gingerbread. The theme? Something all of us had in common, ie. the game I made them play and they turned out loving: Final Fantasy VI. (III in America, I believe.)

From top left: Edgar, Terra, Kefka, Sabin, Celes, Mog, Chocobo, Shadow
Aren't they precious?

So, I basically made the dough, the kids helped by turning on the mixer and such, seeing as they're young and I don't much fancy eggshells in my cookies. The gingerbread is the same recipe as the last batch of cookies, so we won't talk about that. If I'd had fondant they probably would have been a lot nicer, but it wouldn't have been as much fun for the kids, so we mixed up a couple colours of icing and I let them loose. They had a blast. They made a mess. I cleaned it up. Life is good when you're eight and six. They treated me as though I were Leonardo da Vinci himself as I taught them how to use a piping bag, although my skills (seeing as it's impossible to tell apart the ones I decorated from the ones they did) are lacking at best. Point being, we had a great time.

Cyan, Strago, Locke, Relm, Gau and Setzer

I had been planning on doing South Park cookies this year, but seeing as most eight-year-olds (myself excluded, apparently) aren't avid South Park fans, I figured I'd better switch the plan up a bit. So now I have a batch of FFVI gingerbreads, and life if pretty damn awesome.

Gogo and Umaro

Making these cookies was pretty straightforward. We mixed the dough and put it in the fridge for the necessary hour. During that time we looked up pictures of what we wanted to do and prepared icing and such. Time passed relatively quickly. I rolled out the dough and they went to town cutting out the people. Funnily enough, we had just enough dough to make all the characters and a chocobo, well, we'd had two chocobos but one was stolen by an evil passing adult. They cooked rather fast and while they cooled the kids wanted to play the game, so we did.

This one's my favourite. It's both cute and Setzer. ♥

After that, with the icing we prepared earlier, we decorated our cookies. These children are obviously prodigies. I am so proud.

This was the biggest pain in the ass since I had to move back in with my grandmother.

Well, my cookies are done, and I'm already feeling far more jolly than I normally would at this time of year. I think a victory fanfare is in order.

Cheers!

Best Cookies in Existence... Ever.

So, it's that awful time of year where I get depressed due to snow overload, decorations creating eyesores everywhere, terrible songs getting stuck in my head and the stress of finding a gift for everyone. (Don't call me a Grinch, dammit, this is one of the worst holidays ever, besides, I like mistletoe, that's a point in my favour.) To cheer myself up I like to make fun cookies, since apparently it's the time of the year gingerbread, the most delicious of all cookies, is really "in style". And of course, being me, I can't have them be just normal gingerbread men... no, they have to be characters from whatever currently holds my fancy. Last year's cookies were Star Trek: The Original Series-inspired (You'll be seeing those in a minute). This years theme has yet to be decided, but I do have a few things in mind. (If you've got a cool idea, you should drop me a line.)

Yeah, so they're not very detailed. Sue me. They were for fun.

Now to make awesome cookies like these, all you'll need is a basic gingerbread recipe. If you want mine, it can be found here, but it's in French. But they're really good, and the recipe even includes one for icing, if you need one. Seriously, this man is a kitchen god.

Guess which cookies got eaten first.

Make your cookies as directed, yaddy yaddy yadda. Make icing as direct, etc, etc. You have to leave gingerbread in the firdge for a good couple hours, so I suggest making these when you have a lot of free time or when you have something to do in between. When you take them out and roll them, you can use a basic cut-out like I did for my people out of laziness, or you can hand-sculpt, like I did for my Enterprise. Bake as directed, etc. Let them cool before you apply the icing. (Protip: To cool them faster, you can put them in the fridge, or outside if you live in the freaking arctic circle like I do.)

I was really amused that it was Spock-cookie's hand that got split down the middle whilst baking.

Now, depending on what kind of characters you're making, you're going to need a wide variety of colours. I used primarily red, blue and yellow, but had a sort of gold colour for insignias and rank braids, as well as a dark brownish-black for hair and faces. The Enterprise didn't really need icing. I was going to ice her, but I got lazy and was being kicked out of the kitchen. So she just got a label out the left-over gold.

Laziness at its finest.

After you've got all the colours you need, you just apply them in the places your characters' clothes should be. I recommend having reference pictures nearby, that way you don't have to run to find them if you need to have a quick look.

BEHOLD my *cough* amazing *cough* piping skills.

Voila! You have made your very own character cookies. Be proud.

Aww, look at the BFF cookies.

Cheers!