On
Friday night, we planned an earlier than usual dinner for the crowd of us, so
that we could get to the hands-on activities of cookie decorating and egg-dyeing.
The egg-dyeing resulted in only minor scars to the table and a few plastic cups,
but was so involved that it required everyone's supervisory attention, and hence,
there are no pictures from it. It was framed by cookie rolling-out and decorating
with colored sugars before, and then cookie frosting with chocolate ganache
and little sugar chickens and eggs afterward, as well as, of course, cookie-eating
all along the way (from raw to cooked).
At left you see a picture of the participants in the cookie-rolling part of the evening. Aurora, Evan, Judy, Lauren--practically straddling the table in her excitement--and Christina are all reaching forward into the middle of things, while Jennifer examines something at the very back of the picture and Brandon looks on, catching the photographer's eye happily. It was a flour-filled, messy, delightful affair--nothing that a good vacuuming afterwards couldn't take care of. From Lauren on up, each child was given a part of the already-mixed sugar-cookie dough. Judy and Christina were on hand to rescue much-rolled cookies and transfer them to the sheets, where the children were happy to sprinkle the cookies--and the sheet--liberally with much lavender, pink, and green sugars and little shake-on sprinkles in egg or duck shapes.
Brandon's star cookie, in its final form and just prior to being popped in his mouth, is visible at right above: it was a teddy bear cut-out, much sprinkled with decorations, whose head had fallen off. I suggested Brandon apply a chicken for the head, with a dollop of chocolate as glue, and Brandon decided that a chicken belonged in its stomach, too. He's also holding on the chicken/bear's left leg with his fingers. Very soon, the cookie disappeared.
Though the oven timer was set for 5 minutes to check on the cookies, no one heard it go off, and it was only when Judy, 10 minutes after that, began to smell cookies in the air that we leapt to the oven to save them. They were still edible, certainly--as the unanimous vote decided--but they were--well, Brandon put it best, really, when he declared, in an excited voice, "Hey, cool! They made these cookies taste like toast!" Everyone laughed at that, and no one seemed to mind eating toasty cookies when they were made with this much enthusiasm. Above, you see more of the cookie-making group smiling at the camera, and below, the three older kids mug for the camera with the cookies and decorations.
