Christmas Crafting

It's been a pretty low-key weekend, but I did try my hand at a little Christmas crafting and I thought I'd share.  I'm taking the pretty good chance that my mom won't look at my blog to ruin her Christmas surprise, but she's likely on to me anyway since I called her for the recipe and told her I was crafting this weekend.

As long as I can remember, my parents have had a handful of meringue ornaments.  Through the years the humidity and such have taken their toll on the sugary ornaments and they're developing spots and looking pretty sad.  Mom has been in the hunt for new ornaments, but can't seem to find them.  Knowing my mom's computer savvy-ness, I figured that I could easily find some online, order them, and have a wonderful Christmas present.  No such luck.  My Internet search yielded 2 ornaments on eBay that were very nice and old and expensive.  The angel sold before I could think about it and the "great Dane" (aside from not being very Christmas-y) looked more like a misshapen rabbit.

 When my mom came down for my shower, she brought a handful of meringue ornaments that she had attempted to make (above).  She wasn't really happy with how they turned out and was on the lookout for bigger cookie cutters to make bigger shapes.  I did like her snowflakes (the one on the right is pretty severely broken) and mine (below) turned out pretty terrible.

So I thought I would try to make some ornaments.  First I found this recipe and I wasn't really happy with how they turned out.  They were thin (my fault) and sticky and had a yellow tinge to them.  I also don't think that I beat the "batter" long enough.  We ate some of them and they weren't terrible, but they weren't ornament-worthy.

 I still had Mom's reject ornaments on my counter top so I called her and asked for her recipe.  The recipe was very similar, but there wasn't any cooking at the end (the other recipe you cook for 2 hours!) and this one had a time for beating the egg and sugar mixture.  I like times--beat until stiff peaks is somewhat subjective.  How stiff is a stiff peak? I was really happy with how they turned out, so I thought I would share my excitement and the recipe if you wanted to try it out yourself!

 Recipe:
2 egg whites
2 2/3 cups powdered sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
Beat all on low for 1 minute.  Beat 6-8 minutes on medium speed; mixture will be stiff.  Pipe onto wax paper and let dry overnight.

And that was it.  I used my Kitchen Aid because I hate hand beating for that long, and I used the whisk beater.  It worked great.  I also used pastry bags for the red and white (I used food coloring); I only have two pastry bags so I did use a baggie with a hole cut in the corner for the green but I much preferred using the pastry bags.  I will say that the mixture was very thick and my hand got a work out piping out the shapes, but they seem pretty sturdy.  I tried a few different tips and preferred the shell to the star, but I'm sure it's all preference.  I ended up trying to smooth out some of the piping with a butter knife to make them look a bit smoother.  They're not perfect, but I think they turned out well.  The Santas were fun because I could play with the texture in the beard which was much easier than trying to make them smooth.  I printed patterns off of this handy site and placed them under the wax paper while I decorated which worked out really well.  The holes for the hangers were also pretty easy to make after I had completed the shape which was not the case with the first recipe I tried.

 This morning when I peeled them off of the wax paper I noticed they were a little wet on the backs, so I let them dry out before packaging them up.  The recipe I got from mom suggested that you decorate the other side the next day (batter could be kept in the fridge overnight), but to be honest, I was pretty happy with how they turned out and they were thick enough that I didn't need to do the other side, so I didn't.  I was planning on painting the snowmen's hats and faces on the Santas, but I tried a little craft paint on the snowflakes and I think it might have reacted with the sugar, so I'll leave the painting for now.  If Mom wants them painted, we'll test on the back before we get too crazy.

I'm generally not very good at crafting but these turned out well so I thought I would share in case anyone else was interested in giving them a try.  Maybe I did ok because it is loosely related to baking which I love and have some skill for.

And this morning we woke to snow--I know it won't stay all week, but it's here for now and I bet I was more excited than half of the neighborhood kids this morning.  It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!