Ah, the aroma of warm cookies wafts through our lives (You can't catch me I'm the GIngerbread ...blob?)

My dear husband, as do many of us, considers crisp cut out cookies with royal icing, to be the quintessential  Christmas treat. 


Now, I've been baking GF long enough to know that without the tension of gluten, (which, he refers to as the re-bar of the baking world) the fantasy of little stars, flowers, bells and stockings, lightly browned on the edges, golden in the middle, remains just that, a fantasy. 


 Here's what happened, while he was at work, on Saturday, I was spending what he was making...


 Armed with my list and budget, I was determined to stay on track, no impulse shopping for me. 


 But then I found myself in a local craft store and there was a cookie press. I knew it wouldn't work for GF, but I thought it would be a fun way for our daughter to achieve uniform size and shape, take a break from the ice cream scoop method... and it was on sale... Surely I can deviate $6. 


 This led to another deviation. The box had a recipe on it, for classic Spritz cookies. 
LIghtly sweet, buttery, Spritz. 

 I tossed the groceries into the fridge and cabinets, and pulled out my jars and bowls, washed the press, creamed some butter, after gasping at the amount required...nearly a pound! 

 I didn't even bother to cross my fingers, I just gleefully clicked out shapes onto the unlined sheet ( another 1st for me, being a parchment addict), the shapes were so lovely, little trees first, then wreathes, flowers, hearts. I was a little sad to think of them spreading and oozing in the oven, but I popped them in, and sat at the oven door, watching for the melt down (hey, it's cold, and we have no tv) nothing happened.

 I got up, started filling the next sheet up with more hearts and mini 'milano' shapes, all the while keeping a bewildered eye on the first little gems. 

 The timer went off, and behold, perfectly golden little pressed cookies, every detail was perfect. 


 Maybe hypoglycemia had taken hold, maybe it is just the general holiday stress that got to me, I teared right up. 


 I like to think it was just the simple joy of a culinary miracle. I pulled hundreds of them from the oven before realizing I should share the joy with hubby. I set the whole project aside, and set about tidying up.


  Now, the other request, from our littlest, who's now a tweener, GIngerbread People...no way, all that work, rolling, cutting, transferring without dismemberment or decapitation, just to watch science-fictionesque carnage. 

 It was all too gruesome, so, it has sat at procrastination  station for, eeww, since last Christmas... Sorry, dear little Y...

 Yesterday, she was going to be heading home, after a weekend across the river, and I thought, she'll never know if I blew it, I'll just cut the shapes out after I've baked a sheet, I crumble the evidence and make it a crust for pumpkin cheesecake, I'll, I'll... 


 I'll try!


  I boiled the molasses, blended the dries, added a little fresh black pepper, to spice up the vintage Fanny Farmer recipe, and with a swirl of futility and child like optimism slugging it out in my head, I cut out five medium sized Gingerpeople, apologized, crossed my fingers and popped them in the oven. 
  
 This time I could not watch, but I did peek now and then. 


 They began to gloss, they began to puff, the sugar on them began to gleam, but they never lost their shape. I could hardly wait to get them onto the cooling wrack. Perfect little GIngerpeople, bigs, and littles. Gorgeous. Tender centers, crisp edges, how can this be? 


 I need to barter with a photographer, it really isn't fair to you, or these cookies, to simply describe them, you've got to see them!
  
 In the meantime, let me tell you this, 


 The fam was wowed. I had filled their requests, complete with crunchy royal icing!