cookie ornaments

I love Christmas kitchens.  I live in a small farmhouse and so I have a small farmhouse kitchen without a lot of room for non-essentials.  Even though it is small I always try to squeeze in a few baking inspired decorations.

I have a piece of garland that I attach to the shelving that surrounds my stove.  It holds some candy canes, a few tiny wooden spoons and spatulas, some tiny rolling pins and a couple of copper cookie cutters.

My daughter added this to my collection this year.

For several years now I have had a small artificial tree in my kitchen.  It is decorated with more rolling pins and candy canes and some "gingerbread" boys that I made several years ago from a dough with only two ingredients--applesauce and cinnamon.  I store them in a zippered plastic bag and they still smell cinnamony when I pull them out and hang them on the tree.

my tree

"gingerbread" ornament

This year while out shopping my mom mentioned that she is thinking that next year she would like a tree in her dining room.  She has a holiday birthday so I am getting her ornament collection started for next year as her birthday gift.  She has Christmas dishes with snowmen on them and loves all things snowmen so I am giving her some "gingerbread" snowflakes to put on her tree.

Cinnamon ornaments

1 cup cinnamon 

3/4 cup applesauce

Mix the applesauce and cinnamon together until it forms a smooth dough.  I used the food processor.  Roll the dough out until it is 1/4 inch thick dusting the rolling surface with additional cinnamon if the dough is too sticky.  Cut with cookie cutter.  Use a drinking straw to poke a hole for the string.  Place on parchment lined baking sheet and bake in 200° oven for 2 1/2 hours.  Cool.  Attach twine for hanging. There are several similar recipes on the internet, with the same ingredients in the same proportions.  Some of those recipes do not require baking but instead are air dried for 2 or more days until they are thoroughly dry.  During the drying process the cookies need to be turned over several times to allow for even drying on both sides.  I used 1 1/2 times the amount of ingredients and made 13 4 inch snowflake ornaments. 

I went looking for candy canes that she could also use on  her tree.  Mine are the wrapped ones and I keep them and use them every year.  This year all our local big box had were the wildly colored ones so I am keeping my eye out for the traditional red and white ones.

Happy Birthday Mom!

I am joining Susan at Between Naps On The Porch for Metamorphosis Monday.