a few good men

i felt the need to bake gingerbread cookies as the hub took the teen to pick out a christmas tree.

look at how lovely the spices look in the flour mountain!

they smelled wonderful, too.  the dough came together quickly (i used the "perfect gingerbread cookie" recipe from the current food network magazine), and then i stuck it in the freezer for about half an hour.  again, i'm impatient and didn't want to wait two hours for it to chill in the fridge.

rolling it out and getting the shapes cut out was fairly easy.  i used both my "regular" gingerbread man cutter and a few mini cutters i'd just bought.

they baked up nicely, and were just the right amount of crispy/chewy.  mmm, i love baking successes.  i made up just a fourth of a batch of royal icing, knowing i only wanted to do outlines, and found that it was more than enough.  i'm still shaky with the piping bag, but i think they turned out a'ight.

next time, i might cut down a teensy bit on the amount of ground ginger - while the cookies were really kick ass, there was quite a spicy kick to 'em.  the bean didn't complain, though, nor did the rest of the family.

the holiday baking season has truly begun!