Gingerbread Gnomes

This morning, Cedric woke up to some strange house guests.

There were so many of them just lying around.

But they seemed pretty friendly. Even though they were very quiet.

They took strange baths, which seemed unnecessary--they smelled so wonderful.

And most of the time, they just stood there with the same weird expressions on their faces.

And then, they just disappeared. 

Too far?

Anyway, my friend from Michigan sent me these gnome cookie cutters this August and I finally got some pastry bags and icing tips. There is definitely room for improvement, but I still think these guys are pretty cute.

The Recipe

I used one of Sandra Lee's semi-homemade recipes for the cookies. Click here for the directions. You just throw everything in the bowl and mix. The recipe says to let the dough chill first, but Sandra Lee didn't in her video, and I'm impatient, so I didn't either. I put a ton of flour on my wood cutting board and used my new marble rolling pin (my thanksgiving present to myself), and I didn't have any dough-sticking issues. Oh and I did use maybe half a tablespoon more butter than it asks for because the dough seemed a little too crumbly at first.

I also rolled my dough out to about 1/4 inch instead of 1/8, and the cookies came out chewy, not crispy.

 Also, you should google gnome cookies. There are some really talented cookie makers out there.