Baking Bonanza: Attack of the Gingerbread!

Heya Nesters!  Welcome back to Monday! I believe we are officially so close to Christmas now we can taste the egg nog.  Speaking of tasting things, I decided to have another baking bonanza last week.  {Get ready to ingest some calories via osmosis.}  After slugging down my fair share of Dunkin Donuts gingerbread coffee I started thinking about making the real-deal.  Cookies, that is. 

I busted out my cook books, and asked around for tried and true recipes from friends and colleagues and settled on this one from Epicurious.  Surprisingly I pretty much had everything on hand already. 

My kitchen "table" is pathetically small, isn't it?  Regardless, I made the dough the night before and refrigerated over night.  The directions instruct you to roll it out between wax paper which ended up being the easiest clean up I could imagine, but proved difficult to roll since it would slide on the table.  I was tempted to tape it down with painters tape but thought that may be excessive.  Low and behold, once the dough warmed up a smidge, it became much easier to roll and the table stopped impersonating a skating rink.

I had just picked up some cookie cutters at Jo Ann's recently for a steal and I was thrilled to break them in.  I realize to some, it's blasphemy to make gingerbread cookies in any shape other than a "man" but I broke the mold.

One interesting step to the cookie-making process was that after the dough was cut, you need to re-refrigerate them before going in the oven.  Strange right? Get colder before getting hotter?  I did notice the dough got very soft and buttery very fast and became hard to work with.  So this might not be the recipe to have the kiddo's helping you out.  It's a patience testing process. 

Did I mention that I desperately need more counter space?  When you're starting to use the seating as additional counter space, there is something seriously, epically wrong.  {NB: Should have put kitchen table on my Christmas list.}  Now here is the silliest part... I DIDN'T take a picture of the final product.  Yep, I was that tired by the time they were done, I neglected to photograph the goods.  And I also had planned on frosting them.  I even bought fancy pastry icing bags and tips! Alas, sleep won the battle and they went un-adorned with me to work the next day. 

But I did get to decorate Gingerbread Houses with Matt, the Girls and Matts' brother Mark last night and we had a blast!  I even made a trek to Target earlier to grab some additional candy decor!  Sadly, they had no ribbon candy, like I wanted. But they did have some pretty sweet Peeps!

And now watch as the magic ensues....

Going...

 Going...

Gone!

TA DAAAAAA! 

The roof of mine stayed on for probably two hours. Not bad since the fun is strictly in making it.  And those two whole hours were pure Christmas magic.  My gumdrop grass and Christmas lights and vanilla icing snow were lovely.  But gravity always comes back to bite us in the rump roast.

So what about you guys, Nesters?  Have you found an awesome gingerbread recipe? We'd love for you to share! Or perhaps you just found out this year you are a magical Gingerbread house decorator and have left your 9-5'er for being a professional Gingerbread House decorator? {Then maybe you could give me tips on my post-Twister-esque structural issues.}  As always your comments are welcomed and LOVED! Especially since cans for comments is STILL running!