It's not really Christmas unless you bake stuff. It's really fun and it gives your home an increadible delicious smell, especially if you bake with Cinnamon and ginger. It's a great thing to do with your family and friends, and everyone can enjoy what you bake :). And it's even more fun when you decorate cookies merging Christmas and something you're really obsessed with, like Twilight!
This Christmas I made gingerbread cookies of the entire Cullen family and I wanted to share with you the recipe :)
In the movie, all the Cullens wear clothes in cold colors. Kind of a symbol
of their cold blood and state. These means they only wear: blue, purple, lavander,
white, gray and sometimes black. They never wear warm colors like: pink, red,
orange, yellow, brown, etc. I liked this symbol they used for the movie, so
I followed this symbol fo my ginger bread cookies. Since it's Christmas, you
might want to add scarves, hats and other winter clothes to your gingerbread
Cullens. - Blonde vampires: Rosalie, Carslile and Jasper.
It's really not hard at all to bake gingerbread cookies. So even if you're not
used to baking stuff, you can still manage to follow this recipe. All you have
to do is follow the directions carefully, make sure you don't burn the cookies
and basically pay attention to what you're doing. I really encourage you to
try this out. It's fun and this recipe is amazing.
If you have problems with the recipe or if you have any questions you can e-mail
me at wolfspirit(at)twilightpoison.com.
We'll use one of my favorite recipes. I found it on Martha
Stewart's website and it's really easy to follow, I think it's the easiest
recipes out there. All the ingredients are easy to find, and personally I love
every single one of the ingredients used for the cookies. I'll post the entire
Martha's recipe and I'll give you some advice based on my own experience. If
you're familiar with any other recipes or if you don't like this recipe, you
can surf online for other recipes and try out whatever you like the best. Now
let's begin!
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for rolling
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cup packed dark-brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 3/4 cup unsulfured molasses *
- 2 cups confectioners' sugar
- 4 teaspoons powdered egg whites (meringue powder)
* You can substitute this with honey.
Directions (my own suggestions in bold)
1. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, baking
soda, baking powder, and salt; set aside. Using an electric mixer, beat butter
and brown sugar until light and fluffy; beat in egg and molasses. With mixer
on low, gradually add flour mixture; mix just until combined. Divide dough in
half; flatten into disks. Wrap each in plastic, and refrigerate until firm,
at least 2 hours and up to 2 days, or freeze up to 3 months (thaw before baking).
Personally, I would say that one hour of refrigeration is more than
enough.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, with racks set in upper and lower thirds. Working
with one disk at a time, place dough on lightly floured parchment paper, and
roll out to 1/8 inch thick, dusting lightly with flour as needed. Using paper,
lift dough onto two baking sheets; freeze until firm, about 20 minutes.
3. Remove paper and dough from baking sheets. Using a long offset spatula, loosen
dough from paper. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters, and brush off any excess
flour. Transfer to baking sheets. (Gather scraps, briefly freeze, and re-roll.)
4. For softer cookies, bake 8 to 10 minutes; for crunchier cookies, bake 11
to 12 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Transfer cookies to a wire rack
to cool completely.
5. Make icing: In a large bowl, whisk together confectioners' sugar, powdered
egg whites, and 1/4 cup water (if needed, adjust consistency with confectioners'
sugar). Transfer icing to a pastry bag with a small tip, or place in a resealable
plastic bag, and snip a small hole in one corner. Decorate cookies as desired,
and store in a single layer in airtight containers.
Note: The thinner your cookies are, the more fragile they'll
be. So try not to make them too thin because they can break when you reomve
them from the paper.
My own tips for icing.
White icing is plain boring. So what we'e going to do is add color
to the icing. What I would suggest is that you separate your icing into different
little bowls and add a different color to each batch. Leave one batch of icing
completely white.
You need to get artificial colors. These are the ones you need:
- Red.
- Blue.
- Green.
- Yellow.
- Brown.
- Black.
Mix the colors and you'll get more variety:
- Red and blue makes
purple.
- Blue and yellow
makes green.
- Red and yellow makes
orange.
- A tiny drop of red makes
pink.
The more drops of artificial color you add, the more intense the color will
be. I do not recommend adding more than 5 or 6 drops, otherwise your icing will
be very runny and that is not a good thing. It will make the icing more difficult
to work with and instead of decorating your cookies, you'll stain them :/.
Decorating the Cullen family
Bella and Jacob are the only ones that wear warm colors, since they're human.
Now you're gonna need a pastry bag in which you'll transfer the icing to start
decorating. If you don't have a professional pastry bag you can make your own
with a little plastic bag. Cut a tiny hole at the bottom. The smaller the hole,
the better and easier to decorate. Especially when you're adding the hair.
Try to practice on one cookie first. Try out different sizes of holes for the
icing bags and see which looks better for the clothing, the hair, etc. Try to
practice your hand and pulse so you'll decorate the cookie nicely.
Hair
Making the hair can be the trickiest part. To make your hair curlier,
move the bag in little circles as you put the icing. For straight hair just
keep your grip firm and steady around your cookie's head.
- Vampires with reddish, brown hair: Esme, Edward.
- Vampires with black hair: Alice, Jacob and Emmett.
- Dark brown hair: Bella.
Faces and little things like buttons can be very tricky too. You don't need
to use the pastry bag for these. I would suggest you use a tooth pic to add
buttons and the face of your cookies.
If your cookies are large, you can add sprinkles or gummies as eyes and lips.
If they're really small you can use the same icing.
That's it! Have fun making other gingerbread covens and the wolf pack (for these
you should look for a dog cookie cutter). I bet your friends who are also fans
will freak out.
You can even make these cookies for other Twilight occassions, such as movie
or book release parties, Halloween parties, or as a gift for a friend.
If you have any questions e-mail me at: wolfspirit(at)twilightpoison(dot)com.
