The true meaning of Christmas is found in Christ and so even though it is not Easter, I thought crosses would be befitting for Christmas too.

Christmas is definitely a season of love – where family and friends get together to spread festive joy and cheer. May we not forget the true meaning of Christmas – love was why He sent His son.

I know it is not Valentine’s Day, but I had red and white icing left over from Santas, so why not? Have a very blessed Christmas.

Like I said in an earlier post, Christmas is a season where people start baking crazily. I didn’t quite go crazy baking –  it’s just that my gingerbread recipe yields A LOT of gingerbread. So one gets tired of snowflakes and has to think of alternatives. Gingerbread man (and woman) and Christmas trees would be great, if only I had the cutters. That’s right. I only discovered that I did not own any gingerbread or Christmas tree cutters after I’ve made the gingerbread dough. Another reason why one should categorise his/her cutters.

Anyway, I discovered the versatility of the simple circle cutter. A circle cutter and a large piping tip makes good Christmas ornaments. So here are the decorated Christmas ornaments, in a variety of Christmasy colours, individually packed as gifts.

Another use of the mighty circle cutters – Christmas hollies! I tried to pipe these with the leaf tip but perhaps the icing was not quite stiff enough, the vein patterns were not as pronounced. Nevertheless, I think they look cute.

Yet another use for the circle cutters – Santa faces! I got this idea from one of my baking books – Cookie Craft. I think they look absolutely adorable. The children will definitely like them. I was a little lazy to dot the eyes with black dye but if you so fancy, do go ahead.

These are the least of my favourites, but since I had a present cookie cutter, I decided to use them afterall.

And so it’s that time of the year again, where everyone starts baking crazily. Gingerbread is usually on the baking list, and so are iced cookies. So gingerbread iced cookies it will be. I did a series of snowflakes of different sizes, mostly small ones though simply because they are cuter and easier to manage. I like this particular gingerbread recipe because the cookies don’t rise much, leaving a nice flat surface for decorations. Gingerbread softens very quickly, especially with a layer of icing on top. Big ones become very fragile. The above is the plain design – white lemon icing on gingerbread. I like the effect of the gold dragees on the white icing. Perhaps silver would have been better, but they are always out of stock, Christmas or not.

These ones are made using light turquoise lemon icing. My snowflakes are all either white or light turquoise. Somehow any other colour looks a little weird on snowflakes. Pink snowflakes anyone?

I really like these. These are flooded with icing, left to dry before the details are piped on and coarse sugar is sprinkled on the wet details. I couldn’t get hold of sanding sugar but coarse sugar works perfectly well too. Somehow these give an icy snowy feel. Aren’t they pretty?

I tried a white on turquoise combination too. I think the colour combination works pretty well! A very different feel from the white on white.

And here is the big snowflake. I only made three of these because I couldn’t bear the thought of having to decorate so many big ones. And, like I mentioned they are awfully fragile. The next time, I will make the large snowflakes with regular sugar cookie dough. Those are less fragile.

These are the other two large snowflakes that I made. I think the white on turquoise combination still looks better. Turquoise on white looks a little funny.

So did you make any snowflake cookies this year too?