Christmas Wrapped

It’s T minus (mumble mumble) days to Christmas and in our home that means the salivary glands are gearing up for some holiday cookie action.

We have the tasks divided pretty well: My sigOth, the true gastronome of the family, seeks out the recipes for the finest sugar cookies, the lightest lemon cookies, the most perfectly spiced gingerbread men and women, while I scour the web for the decorating inspiration.

The food blogs are always a good stop (oh, thank you Tastespotting – thank you, thank you.) but I also find the myriad cookie photo groups on Flick’r are a fantastic resource for inspired design that I myself might even be able to replicate.

Some of the groups totally worth a look include Holiday Cakes and Cupcakes, Pretty Sweets, and The Cookie Jar. (But I warn you, steer clear if your culinary ego can’t handle it.)

From there I start making mental notes about color schemes, cookie cutter shapes, and of course, those shiny metallic edible balls that kids go nuts over. I fantasize about gift tins and big red tartan plaid ribbons; about presenting the cookies on crisp white dishes to visitors, or tucking them into little mesh bags and tying them to bottles of wine as hostess gifts.

And yeah, I think about eating them.

Here are just a few images recently that have sparked some ideas that I think I could actually do. I mean inspiration is nice and all, but not when executing it requires $600 worth of equipment, a professional convection oven and a culinary arts degree.

From Dano: I love how simple and elegant these trees are. Definitely something I could do myself without messing it up too much.

 

Evanrudemi:

I also adore how this baker sprinkled some sparkly clear sugar over top to make the snowflakes glisten. I never would have thought of that and it’s a really smart touch.

 

From Amy_B: It is highly unlikely that I will pull off something like these clever Thanksgiving cookies, but they don’t seem all that complicated, provided you have some pilgrim heads lying around. They’d be great with Santa heads too, swapping in green and red sprinkles.

 

From finna dat: Once in a while, more is more. I think it’s cool how absolutely covering these trees in sprinkles and red-hots works better than sprinkling them on sparsely.

 

From Solyanka: Gingerbread people get so elegant with stark white piping over a deep brown cookie. And I love those little cars! Makes for a speedy getaway when you’re trying to bite off their limbs I suppose.

 

But alas, I have kids. Which means we all know the reality of the cookie decorating situation.

 

Oh well. At least they taste just as good going down.

What are your holiday cookie plans? Is it a big deal in your house? Does everyone get to pitch in or are you all control freak-y and want them to turn out perfect as only you can make them?