Offering decorated gingerbread Santas during the Christmas season seemed like a fun idea and I wanted to make some for the Pizzeria. I had never attempted them before, but the recipe in Joy of Cooking was quite straightforward. I would be making a larger batch of dough than the recipe called for, but I figured the cookie part would be easy. I had the necessary ingredients, also a gingerbread man cookie cutter and icing bags, all I needed was the time and space to decorate them.
The days leading up to Christmas were always crazy at the restaurant, the stream of people seeking breakfast, lunch and dinner was pretty much non-stop. In order to make special baked items for the festive season I had to sacrifice sleep, that was the only way I could get empty counter space in the kitchen. At times I was able to deal with mince tarts and shortbread cookies between batches of bread, muffins, cinnamon buns and lime pies, but decorating dozens of gingerbread men fell into a whole new category.
I made my first gingerbread dough by hand, using butter, flour, Vincentian molasses, brown sugar and spices. I added flour until the batter was smooth and slightly sticky, then scooped it into large balls. The dough was then wrapped in plastic to be chilled for a few hours in the cooler. I did this in the late afternoon so that I could make the cookies once the Pizzeria had closed for the night. If the gingerbread men tasted anything like the raw dough, they were going to be seriously good!
When the staff had left for the night, I turned off the dining room lights and turned on the kitchen speakers for music to bake with. It was blessedly quiet as I started to roll the cookie dough, and I was content with the solitude. With so many people around me morning, noon and night, it was a rare treat to be alone with my thoughts. I carefully used the cookie cutter, lifting the man-shapes onto greased pans with a spatula. In no time at all several dozen cookies were baking, and they smelled wonderful.
While my ginger men cooled on racks I made the icing, using just confectioners sugar, water and a bit of fresh lime juice. I then divided the icing into separate bowls and used food coloring to make different shades of red. I filled the icing bags with excitement, I was eager to transform the plain gingerbread men into gingerbread Santas! The excitement wore off in a hurry when I realized my icing wasn’t thick enough, it dripped out of the bag and made a mess on the counter as well as the cookies. I carefully mopped the icing off the gingerbread men, then squirted all the icing back into the bowls so I could add more sugar to stiffen it. That worked just fine until I realized that the icing was TOO stiff, and had become like cement in the bags. The was NOT the way Joy of Cooking had portrayed the decorating part, it was frustrating beyond belief!
It took several hours before I had finished decorating my cookies, and although not perfect they had a certain appeal. I had piped white icing around the edges of the little men and given each a white beard. I filled in the white edges with red, giving them colorful coats and trousers. Santa had white boots (who ever heard of black food coloring?) and a white belt, with small currants for buttons and eyes. Red hats and red mouths finished off my Santas, and I laughed to myself as I admired them. They were really cute!
Storing my iced cookies was not easy. I couldn’t package them by the dozen in plastic bags, and if I left them out in the open the tropical air would turn them soggy. I ended up bagging them in small individual plastic bags, and they were sold for an astronomical $5.00 EC each. My Christmas Santa gingerbread men were a great hit – TOO great. The more I sold the more I had to make, always in the dead of night after the Pizzeria had closed, when anyone with any sense at all was fast asleep.
If I were to make those gingerbread men today they would not be $5.00 EC, which back then was a lot of money to spend on a cookie, decorated like Santa or not. My labor is no longer cheap and I am no longer young, at least $25.00 EC per cookie would be today’s price if I were even willing to make them, which I am NOT!