Holiday Memories: Cookies and Gingerbread for the Holidays
I hope you're all ready for Christmas - it's just three days away. It's been another challenging year for us all, but brighter days are ahead. I hope you are able to enjoy this time with those near and dear. For the next couple of weeks, I'll be sharing a few of my favorite holiday memories from years past. This blog was originally posted one year ago on December 23, 2020. Enjoy this encore blog! If you're busy baking cookies and other treats, be sure to visit Martha.com for a scrumptious selection of recipes.
I hope you are all enjoying these last couple of days before Christmas despite pandemic guidelines to keep parties and other gatherings small and intimate.
This year, I wasn't able to have my annual holiday party at my Bedford, New York farm. I usually invite more than 200-guests for an open house through three buildings, each with a different and festive theme. Some of last year's party photos are in the December 2020 issue of my magazine "Martha Stewart Living" - I hope you have your copy; it's on newsstands now. Among the main features at the event - my elaborate gingerbread village and the thousands of cookies we baked and decorated for my guests.
Here are more photos from December 2019, enjoy.
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- Preparations for my annual holiday party start weeks in advance. During the week leading up to the party, I make two or three cookie doughs every night after work and then store them in the refrigerator. I made all the sugar cookie and gingerbread cookie doughs.
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- Last year, I gifted myself with this wonderful prepline countertop dough sheeter from Kitchenall. It is a commercial size machine, so it took up almost the entire counter, but it saved us so much time. The dough is placed on the conveyer belt and then passed through the machine – no rolling needed. It’s so amazing. And when it is done, it is flattened to a pre-programmed thickness.
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- Longtime “Living” contributor and author of the new book, “Fruit Cake: Recipes for the Curious Baker,” Jason Schreiber, helped me create a beautiful gingerbread village for the party. My Winter House kitchen was bustling with activity.
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- Jason pre-made all the templates using cardboard and labeled each piece with the structure name and building part.
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- Royal icing was used to secure all the pieces together. This is the back of a chimney ready to be placed onto a house.
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- Here is the inside of two walls – all carefully connected with delicious royal icing. Finished houses dry in the background.
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- T-Pins are used to hold the pieces together until they dry.
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- Then more icing is applied to support the roof.
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- Here I am using silver-leaf foil to decorate the the top of this roof. We worked late into the night, but it was so much fun.
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- Meanwhile, Jason tends to the piping details on this wall to the clock tower.
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- Down at my Maple Avenue House, Molly Wenk @moll_doll23 and Jessie Damuck @jessdamuck prepared the long list of cookies to make. Being very organized is crucial when making so many cookies.
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- Molly and Jessie spent four days baking and decorating cookies with me. I am fortunate to have several kitchen at the farm where we could use all the ovens to make stacks and stacks of cookies.
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- These cookies were just decorated and are ready to be displayed. In the center, crushed freeze-dried raspberries and pink peppercorns on icing-filled sugar cookies.
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- On the day of the party, guests were told not to miss the “Cookie House” – Alexis’s little Tenant House was filled with sweet treats. We made about 2500-cookies in all. Many of the recipes are from my books and my web site at MarthaStewart.com. In this house, they were surrounded by whimsical woodland animals and miniature cookie figurines – the children loved this house the best.
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- I made these gorgeous palmiers, also known as pig’s ears, palm hearts, or elephant ears. These are French pastries made in a palm leaf shape or a butterfly shape. My guests loved these so much, they were gone before I got to even taste one myself.
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- I love to incorporate natural elements whenever possible. Here in the woodland Christmas themed Tenant House, cut tree stumps hold stacks and stacks of cookies – Alexis’s brown-sugar chocolate chip cookies, four-ingedient sables bretons, bourbojn-spiked Noel nut balls, raspberry and apricot jam filled pecan linzers, and sugar cookie mushrooms.
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- We decorated sugar cookies in different colors – these in white, gold and silver.
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- Green royal icing and sanding sugar were applied in sections to add texture to these gingerbread trees.
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- And these sugar cookie wreaths were embellished with ground Sicilian pistachios and silver and gold dragees.
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- Some cookies were as small as coins while others spanned seven inches across – there was something for everyone. And guests were encouraged to take a bag home with them to enjoy later.
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- In the Summer House, more sweet treats – fruit jam pecan linzers, and more iced sugar cookies. For all the cookie recipes, download the free booklet on our web site.
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- And then back in my Winter House Brown Room – the finished gingerbread village.
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- Small lights were used to illuminate every house.
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- The entire village scene includes outdoor elements as well – gingerbread boxwood and trees covered in snow.
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- The village filled an entire table. It was such a beautiful centerpiece – everyone loved it. I hope you are baking lots of beautiful cookies this holiday. No matter how small, every Christmas gathering can be special. See more photos from last year’s gathering in this December 2019 blog. Happy holidays.
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