Gingerbread... with a Twist

Sooo, even with a holiday to-do list already busting at the seams, inspiration struck last week when I stumbled on this kinda amazing, albeit ambiguously simple, novelty gingerbread cookie-cutting set. I've made my share of spice-cookie architecture and smiling ginger-boys and girls, but this was something new, something special - and I loved it... but I could so totally do something better...

So I did.

Starting with a silhouette of Oscar's handsome pop, Ruger, and utilizing some very gracious design/engineer friend-consult, I fashioned, step-by-step, my very own custom Ridgeback cookie cutters...


Now, molding tin dog silhouettes to a perfectionist's specs isn't exactly a walk in the park, but lest you think it's all smooth sailing once you've got a bonafide "dough-stamp" - working with raw gingerbread (I'll posit any cookie dough) is, let's just say, rather tricky. *Consider that your molds - dependent on THREE cookies to amicably interlock - have a lean margin for variance in cookie thicknesses; consider that gingerbread rises ever so slightly (and completely uncontrollably) while baking; consider that your icing, depending on how you make it and how thickly you spread it, adds it's own hair to two-hair's thickness; then consider that gingerbread, as a sculptural material, could honestly care less about what you're up to... Add that all up and you've got a recipe for trial and error. Lucky for me, I'm one patient amateur baker...


Many delicious prototypes and test runs later, I had a small pack of "perfect" gingerbread dogs, which I guarded FIERCELY until all photography and special gifting was complete. And now - project documentation buttoned up and posted - I just have a half dozen or so extra reasons to go out for a run or find a treadmill every day for the next month...

*For those curious, the gingerbread recipe I followed was from trusty MarthaStewart.com, as was that for the Royal Icing. And if you're wondering about the icing color, which is actually a bit brighter in person, behold - Neon Food Coloring (yeah, they make that now!).

Comments

[Holly Buttura]

OMG! Totally amazing Natalya!! And even more so is the restraint Oscar Dog posses when sitting in front of those tasty looking morsels!! Hope he sampled at least a few!!

[Linn @ The Home Project]

This is too adorable. How fun to make three dimensional cookies & to color them so brightly!

[Mark Villarreal]

happend to cross this post on Notcot.org today and I have to say I love your work and Oscar. Keep up the great work. ^ ^

[Natalya]

Many thanks all! We had a ton of fun with this project - and yes, Oscar for sure got one of those cookies as a reward - the pink one, to be exact! (I couldn't really do much with it after it had Beast drool all over it...)...

xo
N+O