Monday, November 30, 2009

Gingerbread Ornaments

These cookies aren't to eat, but they sure do smell good!
And they're adorable, aren't they?!



My daughters Brownie (Girl Scout's) troop entered a tree into the Festival of Trees this year.  The theme was Girl Scout Cookies :)
Each mom had an assignment, mine was to make Gingerbread Girl Ornaments.
This is what I came up with.

First, the gingerbread recipe I used is non-edible (see bottom of post for recipe link and tips.)
They bake up nice and puffy, then dry super hard. Oh, and they smell heavenly.
Once they were dried out I sprayed them with polyurethane. I'm not sure how necessary this step is, but the Festival Rules required it.
I painted them with craft paints - SO much easier than frosting!

Here we go!
Mix up your dough.


Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 4 hours. Mine was in the fridge overnight.
Once you're done refrigerating, divide the dough into 3 pieces and roll out to 1/4 inch thickness.
 

Use cookie cutters to cut out your shapes (this recipe would be great for gingerbread house walls, too!)


Use a straw to make a hole in each cookie before baking.


Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.
Once all the cookies were done baking I placed them all back on cookie sheets and put them in the oven while it cooled off - to dry the cookies out a little more.
Then I let them dry for 24 hours.
This is when I sprayed them (front and back) with polyurethane.
I let them dry overnight, then painted them.


This was the hardest part - because I'm not a great painter.

I also made some for me and the grandparents - a boy and a girl gingerbread ornament for each of us :)
How cute is this little guy?


I have several left over for the kids to paint on the weekend.  These can hang around for ever without going bad!

Recipe Link
Tips: I used almost a full cup more water than the recipe calls for. It needed it!
The recipe made about 30 cookies, and my cutter was pretty big.

After the cookies were done I ended up using sandpaper to smooth the sides on many of them.
If I were going to make them again I would probably reduce the baking soda a bit - they got a little puffier than I would have preferred.

Linking up to...
Dare to DIY
Just Something I Whipped Up
and It's So Very Creative
:)

10 comments:

Kim @ NewlyWoodwards said...

So cute! You are totally a supermom.... making ornaments that look like COOKIES! Awesome.

Thanks for joining in.

cindy said...

VEry adorable, and your painting is great! What's not to love? :)

peace.

Lacie @ Creative Attempts said...

So so cute..do they all go on the same tree? I wanna see pics of that

Mary said...

Awesome! We're doing these kinds of ornaments on our tree this year with a popcorn and cranberry garland.

Unknown said...

These are so cute!

Holly Lefevre said...

I can smell them now. My kids, especially my son would love this project. Super-cute! Great blog...I MUST follow!

Holly @ 504 Main

Its So Very Cheri said...

We made some gingerbread ornaments this year too.

Ilove these-You are so creative.
Thanks for linking to the party.
I will click to follow and add you to my subscriptions if you have that feature on your blog.
Do you want to know why
I am both following and subscribing? Check out my blog for the Google update.
Cheri

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