Heart-Shaped Ginger Cookies
A prized cookie cutter from our house on Whirlwind Hill is shaped like a heart. It comes from a set of four – heart, club, spade, and diamond. For many, many years I used these cutters to make ginger cookies at Christmas. Eventually I just used the heart. The shape was so pleasing, and when frosted with pink butter-cream icing, they reminded me of every picture I had ever seen of the iconic gingerbread man. I always used the gingerbread man recipe from the New York Times cookbook, and added a little almond extract to the frosting, just like my mother would have done.
“Heart Cookies,” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache and colored pencil, 2015
Until a few years go when I was making genealogy photo calendar as a Christmas present, I hadn’t realized how many family memories involved food. We need food to survive, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, but isn’t it amazing what a role food traditions make in our lives, and especially at holidays?
Food traditions are so ingrained in our daily lives. And especially at holidays. We do need food to survive, and also to connect with each other and with the past.
Hi Carol – pretty pictures and am going to piggyback on your idea of almond in the frosting. Enjoy your grandchildren. Remember to stop by when you are in area!
Thanks Netzy. It’s good to hear from you. Happy holidays to you and your family, and thanks for the invitation!
How ironic! I just finished using the heart shaped cookie cutter now. I also have the other “suits” but I only make trees, Santas, gingerbread men, birthday cakes and hearts. I like the heart because it is small and I can use up the dough without re-rolling it.
And I like the heart for the same reason. I used to make actual gingerbread men and women, but sometimes they seemed just too big. I also like to make trees and sometimes tiny gingerbread people.
I love this painting Carol—and I remember these cookies from the Solstice teas. I’ll have to dig up that recipe. Thank you!
Hi Michelle. If you can’t find the recipe let me know. You must be starting your travel soon?
Carol,
This makes my heart go thump, thump, thump. It brings back so many memories of my childhood making heart shaped cookies with my mom. She also had a little heart shaped cutter and i loved to watch her use it and help her when she was making treats. Thanks for the post. Makes me want to bite into a pink frosted heart cookie. ? nancy g
Watching our moms cooking seems a treasured memory for so many people. Wish I could bite into one of those cookies too. Guess I’d actually have to make them first!
Two for me, please.