Yummm.....

It's freezing outside. Literally. I haven't been outside, but Kevin was. He said the weather app on his phone told him it was over 30 degrees out, but that it felt like 28. I believe him, and have no desire to venture outdoors to attempt any kind of confirmation. 

Instead, I stayed in and finished part II of yesterday's baking extravaganza! Hooray! Wanna see pictures? Of course you do....

Yes. I made peppermint meringues. They're adorable. I even painted little stripes of red gel food coloring on the inside of the pastry bag before I piped out the little Hershey-Kiss-Sized meringues, so they look all cute and festive. There's about 20 in this picture in the teacup (with our adorable tree in the background all lit up), and there's about 250 more of them in the kitchen that are covering every cookie sheet that I own. I think I overdid it.....but they're just so darned INEXPENSIVE TO MAKE, and so cute and gift-able to boot. I mean really, you need three eggs, 3/4 of a cup of sugar, peppermint extract, and a little red food coloring (you could not bother with the food coloring I guess, and I probably would if it wasn't Christmas). I think next time, I'll make them bigger, and do red and green food coloring to make them a little more Christmas-y still. 

This part of the blog is ESPECIALLY for my Auntie Sheryl. She gave me my first rolling pin (which I use now in place of the paper towel roll holder I was using before) and she also gave me my baking timer (which keeps me from burning everything I make into ash). She loves seeing pictures of me in my kitchen, so I had Kevin take this one just for her. Yes, I know I have flour on my face. 

Hi Auntie Sheryl!

Here's what I made next.....

I also made some gingerbread cookies, and they might be what I'm most excited about. See, whenever I make cookie dough that's supposed to be the kind you roll out and cut out cute shapes, it turns into goo. Big, messy, sticky, unmanageable balls of sticky goo. This time, they came out perfectly. I even got to use the little adorable set of biscuit cutters to cut them out in little fluted shapes. I love these. I played with different types of frosting, and ended up with a blend of cream cheese and tangerine, which I thought would go nicely with the spicyness of the ginger snaps. I tried a few, and they tasted good, but ultimately I ended up leaving the majority of them unfrosted...why mess with something good? 

Yummy. I'll have to bring some of these to work tomorrow.....the last thing I need is big containers full of such goodness just lying around waiting for me to eat them all up. Maybe I should start running again.....

Next up, I plan on doing some sugar cookie snowflakes with white royal icing and pearly white dusting sugar. I even have some blue sugar-pearls that I might pop on, too, just for fun....