The "Edible" Christmas Tree

Yesterday I told you about making  Stained Glass Ornament Cookies.  Today I thought you might be interested in seeing what I did with them.  I added them to what I refer to as "The Edible Tree" in the dining room (bear in mind here, that it's the ornaments and not the tree that are edible).  The tree rests on the sideboard in the room where we have our big holiday dinners, usually before a blazing fire in the Franklin Stove. Some years it is so Norman Rockwell that I could die.  This tree grew more out of desperation than inspiration.  Our 119-year-old house has a basement that is only accessible from the outside (and down a steep flight of steps).  Last year when the weather turned bad on tree decorating day I decided to leave the ornaments stored in the basement and head to the pantry to see what I could come up with.  I grabbed Christmas peeps, bell-shaped gumdrops, and candy canes. Then I got to work baking cookies, poking holes in them before baking so I could string them with gold cord in order to add them to the tree.  I ended up with a unique tree that everyone loved.  This year, instead of the chocolate chip cookies, I made the gingerbread cookies shaped like ornaments.  To hang the candies I ran them through with ornament hooks and hung them on the tree.  The little ones in your family will be dazzled by a tree like this, but do take the edible ornaments down yourself and remove the hooks before giving them to small children.  You don't want over zealousness to lead to injury!  Clearly everything on the tree is not edible.  The lights, red glass ball ornaments, and garland is not, but the majority is, and with each passing year I come up with more ideas. The beauty of this tree is that when the season is over there is very little to put away.  

I encourage you to come up with your own special baking or decorating ideas this year and make them a treasured memory for you and your family.  This is how traditions begin.

This post is linked to:

Seasonal Sunday and Sweets for a Saturday

Gingerbread Party at Cozy Home Scenes

HOLIDAY PROJECT #3 - Gingerbread Cookie Tags and Ornaments

And you thought gingerbread cookies were just for eating.  No, they can be a fun decorating element as well as a tasty holiday cookie.

A couple of years ago I decided that I was going to spend less time searching for, hauling, unpacking, decorating the tree, and then repacking all of the Christmas ornaments.  Considering, at one point, I decorated 9 trees, my supply, as you can imagine, is considerable.  But I found the holidays becoming overwhelming and had to ask myself whether time to relax and reflect was more important than making myself crazy creating a stunningly perfect atmosphere, and overwhelmingly, time won.

In order to provide myself with more time, I decided to embrace simplicity and go with a lot of edibles and organics on one of the two trees I continued to set up.  The kitchen-themed dining room tree became the "edible tree" decorated solely with cookies, candies, nuts and popcorn. It made for a fun tree, a real conversation piece, plus when the holiday was over, what hadn't been eaten or carried off was given to the birds or discarded and the only thing needing packing away was the tree.

Spicy Gingerbread Cut-Outs drizzled with white chocolate

In addition to making chocolate chip cookies with holes in the top through which I could thread ribbon and tie them to the tree, I also made gingerbread snowflakes.  I used the largest cooky cutter that I had in order to provide an eye-catching display.  Guests were encouraged to remove one to take with them on their way home.

I made plenty of cookies, too, drizzling them with both white and milk chocolate for inclusion on the ample cookie tray.  Then I took it one step further and free-hand cut out gift tags with the remaining dough, decorated, and personalized them (with the help of my son, Andrew, who made the leaves); these were then used in place of name tags on holiday packages.  I placed each one in a cellophane bag, tied the bag closed with a long length of curling ribbon, then tied that same ribbon onto the package.  Talk about rave reviews!

It was work, but it was fun and a lot of laughs, and it brought smiles to the faces of both young and old making the effort very worthwhile.  There are a lot of recipes for gingerbread cookies, so I encourage you to use your favorite, but if you don't have one of your own, here is a spicy version that you might enjoy.

Spicy Gingerbread Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter 

1 cup dark-brown sugar, packed 

2 large eggs 

1 cup unsulfured molasses

6 cups sifted all-purpose flour 

1 teaspoon baking soda 

1/2 teaspoon baking powder 

4 teaspoons ground ginger 

4 teaspoons ground cinnamon 

1-1/2 teaspoons ground cloves 

1/2 teaspoon finely ground black pepper 

1-1/2 teaspoons salt 

Raisins, dragées, and/or red hot candies for decoration (optional)

Royal Icing for decoration (optional)

In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and molasses. In another bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture. Divide dough into thirds and wrap each third in plastic wrap. Chill for about 1 hour. Preheat oven to 350 F. Roll dough 1/8 inch thick between two pieces of waxed paper. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters. Transfer shapes to ungreased cookie sheets. If desired, decorate with raisins, dragées, and/or red hot candies. Refrigerate about 15 minutes. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until crisp but not dark. Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for 1 minute, then remove to wire racks to cool completely.


For more holiday cookie recipes, treat yourself to Martha Stewart's cookie book.





This post is linked to Foodie Friday and Show and Tell Friday, and Metamorphosis Monday.