First, Gaultier. If someone had told me that Madonna, Bruce Willis, Lady Gaga, Milla Jovovich, and Pedro Almodóvar all had something in common (apart from being celebrities), I wouldn’t have believed them. But they do. I had never thought about who had designed Madonna’s iconic cone-shaped bras or the futuristic costumes in The Fifth Element, but over the course of the exhibit I learned that Gaultier had designed a number of the iconic costumes I’ve seen in popular culture.

Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the exhibit (and there were only a couple of things to photograph from outside of the exhibit), but I’ll give a few highlights of my favorite parts.

The room you enter first is the one pictured on the exhibit page on the Dallas Museum of Art’s website. It has a number of models wearing Gaultier designs, including a few mermaid designs. I recommend spending a bit of time in this room and looking at the models very closely. There’s something very interesting about them. If you plan to visit the exhibit and want to be surprised, then skip the following paragraph.

So, for those of you who don’t plan to see this exhibit, I’ll explain. When I first entered the exhibit, I thought I was looking at very lifelike mannequins. Then I noticed one of the mermaids’ lips moved. I thought I’d imagined it, so I watched a bit closer and, yes, they did move. Then I began to notice that occasionally the eyes or lips on some of the other mannequins would move. I began to think that maybe I was looking at models that had been made to look like mannequins (even down to painting seams on their arms where the pieces of a mannequin would fit together). This thought made me a little uncomfortable since I’d spent the last few minutes staring at the clothing, not realizing I might have been rudely staring at people. Then, on looking a little closer, something didn’t seem quite right about the models’ faces. As you moved, the perspective of their faces didn’t quite change the way it should have. Looking closer yet again, I realized that these were, in fact, mannequins, but projectors that were discreetly and artistically mounted on the ceiling (see the cylinder shapes hanging from the ceiling in the exhibit photo on the museum website) were projecting videos of models’ faces onto the mannequins’ heads. Very interesting idea! This was probably my favorite part of the exhibit.

The following rooms of the exhibit described the life of Gaultier and various phases and aspects of his fashion design. I learned that Gaultier had designed the cone-shaped bra look that Madonna made famous (they had her stage costumes on display), and that he’d designed some of the costumes I’ve seen in Pedro Almodóvar’s movies.

I was particularly surprised to learn that Gaultier had designed all of the costumes in The Fifth Element. The exhibit displayed Chris Tucker’s leopard print jumpsuit and cylindrical wig, and Gaultier’s sketches of the designs for the rest of the characters’ costumes, including Bruce Willis’ neon orange shirt and Milla Jovovich’s orange rubber suspenders. I never would have guessed that a couture fashion designer had designed the costumes for a popular culture sci-fi movie, but he did an awesome job of it! The costumes are in part what made me love the movie. :)

Beyond celebrity and film costumes, the exhibit also displayed a number of designs inspired by various regions of the world, from Africa to Spain to Asia. Altogether, it was a very interesting exhibit, especially if you enjoy looking at fashion and costumes. The exhibit closes on February 12, so there’s about a week left to see it, if you’re interested.

Now for the souffles. Yum.

Before checking out the fashion exhibit, we had lunch at Rise n°1, an amazing souffle restaurant. My sister discovered this restaurant when she gave me a Dallas Classic Desserts cookbook one Christmas and saw the restaurant’s chocolate souffle recipe. So she checked the place out and fell in love with their seasonal pumpkin dessert souffle.

Located in Inwood Village near the Dallas Love Field airport, the restaurant has so many things I love that I hardly know where to start. From the outside, it looks nice but is not particularly notable, but inside, everything from the interior design to the dishes used to the story of the place makes it unique.

For starters, the interior of this restaurant is designed in such a way as to make it feel cozy and spacious at the same time. I’m not sure how they do it, but it’s just the right intimate setting for a local restaurant. I love the branches that separate the bar area from the restaurant, and the sitting area filled with cookbooks and other kitchen gadgets to occupy your attention while waiting for a table. At the table, I love that they use colorful mismatched antique linen napkins, mismatched antique silver flatware, beautiful ceramic dishes stamped with the restaurant name and glazed in a variety of color combinations, and glasses made from recycled wine bottles.

And the food is amazing. We tried the marshmallow soup, the crab souffle, the truffle infused mushroom souffle, and the pumpkin souffle. All were delicious.

The marshmallow soup is much more appealing than it sounds. It’s not actually marshmallows floating in your soup, but instead a tomato-based soup with mini goat cheese souffles (that look like marshmallows) floating on top and a little bit of basil pesto poured over everything. I’m a fan of tomato basil soup, cheese, and pesto, so I loved it.

The crab souffle was also delicious and very rich, but not so much so that I wouldn’t have been able to eat a whole souffle if I hadn’t been sharing.

And the truffle infused mushroom souffle was a much more subtle flavor by comparison, and just as delicious. Sometimes I find mushroom dishes like risottos to be a little overpowering (which is amazing considering how much I love mushrooms), but this souffle was just right. Unfortunately this souffle looked a little sad compared to the crab souffle, but that didn’t matter much considering how delicious it was.

Finally, the pumpkin souffle was everything my sister had described. It was amazing. Imagine a pumpkin pie in souffle form, maybe with a bit more vanilla in it and a creamy sauce and whipped cream on the side, and that’s the souffle.

I think I’d like to make that chocolate souffle recipe, now. :)

For a year and a half now I’ve noticed the castle-like spires of the DC Mormon Temple poking out above the trees as I drive west on the Beltway. It’s a very interesting-looking building. So I was very excited when I heard that they host a festival of lights that’s open to the public every year. This was my chance to see the building in person!

It’s an interesting building. It kind of makes me think of an angular, futuristic version of the Disney castle. We saw that they also host musical performances every evening during the light displays, but since we mostly just wanted to see the building and the lights up close, we left after taking a few pictures and didn’t stay for the music.

Overall, my verdict on this event was that it was fun to see so many lights on the trees and to see such an interesting building in person, but I’m not sure it would be worth the drive from DC to visit it more than once. I’d much rather revisit Zoolights or the National Botanic Garden’s holiday display. My recommendation is to visit this event next year if you live nearby or if you haven’t seen it before, and if you do visit, consider making it part of an evening of driving around the nearby neighborhoods looking for houses with pretty Christmas lights, as the visit won’t take long and hunting for Christmas lights nearby will make the drive much more enjoyable. :)

They’re a bit of a luxury to buy (but so delicious!) since most bakeries price them as though they’re big cookies even though they’re about an inch or so wide and composed largely of air, but as far as baking them goes, their ingredients cost about the same as any other cookie (unless you want to make fancy flavors using imported ingredients). What you’re paying for at the bakery is the cost of labor and expertise, as these cookies take a bit of planning and time to make, and you’re not likely to end up with an entire batch of picture-perfect cookies on your first try. Or your second or third.

As it is, I ended up with a few pretty cookies (that still wouldn’t pass for bakery-quality) and a bunch with cracked tops or irregular shapes that I gifted anyway because they tasted good and there’s no sense in letting a perfectly good cookie go to waste just because it’s not pretty enough.

Since you’re supposed to let the egg whites sit out overnight for these cookies (supposedly to let them thicken so that the macarons will be less fragile), I prepared enough egg whites for four batches in fear of my completely ruining my first attempts and not having enough time to prepare more egg whites for additional attempts. Since my first batch turned out roughly ok (meaning they tasted good but looked nothing like what they were supposed to look like), I decided to try a triple batch of another recipe so that the remaining egg whites wouldn’t go to waste. After both of my first attempts, I read Brave Tart’s argument for not needing to age the egg whites at all, so next time I make macarons I probably won’t even bother with this step. In fact, I’ll probably try her recipe since her Macaron Mythbusters article leads me to believe her recipe would probably be even easier to follow than the others I tried so far.

I actually liked the second recipe better than the first, possibly because I corrected a few things from my attempt at the first recipe. So, for your reference, here are the recipes I tried (both use American cooking measurements instead of metric weights, which was a must for me since I don’t have a cooking scale):

• First try for the cookies: A La Cuisine’s basic macaron batter
• Second try for the cookies: David Lebovitz’s chocolate macaron batter (much easier and much more successful)
• Chocolate ganache filling: I created variations on Serious Eats’ recipe

And here are a few other sites I found useful in my research:

• Brave Tart debunks several macaron myths, thus making it easier for the rest of us to make macarons. Yay!
• Serious Eats gives extremely useful tips and a number of links to other recipes (which was how I found the recipes I used)
• Macaron Fetish includes a link to a useful video to watch for the macaronage process (folding the ingredients together until they’re the right consistency). Also I would LOVE to try the cappuccino coffee macaron recipe someday once I have a kitchen scale.
• Bakerella explains how to make your own almond flour using a food processor (which will save you a lot of money and time since almond flour is a bit pricey and difficult to find).
• Pinterest.com is extremely useful in finding recipes (I think I found most of the sites listed in this post on that site), as recipes for macarons are a pretty popular topic on that site AND more importantly, you can see pictures of everything before looking further. I like searching with pictures.

And now for the step-by-step process photos! I’m including photos from both of my attempts and tips based on what worked and didn’t work for me.

French Macarons

Ingredients: Refer to the recipes linked earlier in this post to determine what you prefer to try. I recommend trying David Lebovitz’s recipe.

I originally read that at least a day before you plan to bake, you should separate the egg whites for the recipe and leave them sitting out at room temperature until you plan to bake. This allows the egg whites to thicken so that the cookies will be less fragile upon baking. However, as I mentioned earlier, this might not actually be necessary. So if you’re feeling adventurous and impatient, consider skipping this step.

If you’re not feeling so adventurous and you think you might make multiple attempts, I recommend leaving out a cup of egg whites for each attempt. I went a little overboard and planned for four attempts (and just did a triple batch of cookies as my second attempt).

Make the almond flour. I couldn’t find almond flour at the grocery store and only found extremely large quantities of it online, but after a bit more research discovered you can make it yourself with a food processor. Doing this, you can use any type of almonds you want (or for that matter you could use any nut ground up for the flour, maybe even a nut alternative if you’re making macarons for someone with nut allergies). I had blanched slivered almonds, so I used those. Two 8 oz bags were more than enough for four batches of cookies.

If you make your own almond flour, there’s a good chance it will still have some moisture from the almonds in it and will clump as a result. You don’t want your almond flour to clump because then you’ll be able to see little lumps in the otherwise smooth surface of your macarons. A La Cuisine recommends spreading the dry ingredients on a baking sheet in the oven on low heat to dry them out. Unfortunately I didn’t realize my ground almonds still had moisture in them and skipped this step, so this made some of the later steps more difficult and made my macarons more lumpy. Drying the almond flour is another myth that Brave Tart debunks, but having seen the visible lumps in my batter, I’m a little skeptical. Perhaps that’s just an indication of my macaronage skills needing to be polished, though.

Before making your macaron batter, line a few (maybe 3 or so for a single batch) cookie sheets with parchment paper and use a pencil to draw 1 inch circles about an inch or so apart on the backside of the paper (you don’t want your cookies to touch the graphite). Make sure you do this before starting the batter so that you’ll be ready to squeeze out your macaron batter right when it’s the right consistency. If you want consistently shaped and sized cookies, I recommend not skipping this step, at least for your first couple of times of making macarons.

Measure all of your dry ingredients into a food processor and pulse it a few times to mix everything together and fluff it up (you want the dry ingredients to be light and fluffy, not packed together).

Some recipes call for passing your almond flour through a strainer. I’m guessing this would help to ensure you have very fine, smooth cookies, but I don’t recommend doing this as it was VERY difficult and time-consuming (I did it for my first attempt, then switched to the food processor for my second attempt) and the food processor method of fluffing everything was much more effective.

Beat the egg whites on high speed until they’re foamy and form peaks. If you’re making a single batch of macarons, don’t use your largest mixing bowl, as you’ll have too much surface area for the volume of liquid and it will be difficult to beat the eggs effectively. Again, Brave Tart determined that this step wasn’t necessary for her and actually bypassing it made her more consistent and thus possibly more successful in making macarons, so next time I might try to just dump the sugar into the egg whites from the start. It would certainly be much easier!

Gradually add the sugar (like I said, I might instead add it all at once next time), continuing to beat on high speed until the mixture forms stiff peaks that mostly hold their shape when you lift the beater out of the mixture.

Using a soft rubber spatula, fold the dry ingredients into the wet mixture until they form a “magma-like” consistency. What is a “magma-like” consistency, you might wonder? I did. It’s when the mixture is thick enough that when you form a peak, it will briefly hold the peak but then sink back into a mostly-smooth surface within about thirty seconds. I recommend watching the 3:50-5:12 segment of this video first (Note: it is in french, but you should get the idea from just watching), as it gave me a good idea of the technique. If only I had a rubber spatula like theirs! I only had a long-handled one, which felt a bit more awkward for this type of folding/mixing, but it worked well enough.

Technique is supposed to be very important for this step (although I’m sure I didn’t get it right in my first attempts). This was what my mixture looked like when I was done (note the lumps in the otherwise smooth batter from my using not-entirely-dry almond flour).

Use a pastry bag with about a half-inch plain round tip to squeeze the batter onto the circles you drew on the parchment paper. You can cut the tip off of the pastry bag if you don’t have a large enough tip attachment (I don’t), or you can use a ziplock baggie with the corner cut off if you don’t have pastry bags.

However, I strongly recommend at least using pastry bags with the tip cut off, as the shape of ziplock bags (a right angle to the corner instead of a sharper angle to the corner) makes it more difficult to control the batter coming out and MUCH easier to accidentally cut off too much of the corner of the baggie and have way too much batter come out. As I mentioned before, I also recommend not skipping the step to draw the circles on the backside of the parchment paper (at least, if you’re new to making macarons), as they made it much easier for me to evenly size, shape, and separate the macarons in my first batch. I skipped this step on my second batch, and between that and using the more-difficult-to-control ziplock baggie method, I ended up with a very wide range of sizes and shapes of cookies, and a few cookies that spread and melded together on baking.

Tap the bottom of each cookie sheet on the counter to get rid of any air bubbles in the cookies. Some recipes recommend that you let the cookies sit for thirty minutes to an hour before baking them so that a film will form on the surface and a “foot” (or rather, a less-smooth band at the bottom of the cookie that forms when the cookie rises and the smooth surface simply lifts instead of expanding) will form under the cookies when they bake, but I saw disagreement on this online (both David Lebovitz and Brave Tart gave good arguments for not needing to) and decided to not do it myself since I was impatient. My cookies were imperfect, but they did have a “foot” to them, so I’m concluding that you don’t need to wait. Bake your macarons at the temperature directed by your recipe for the length of time directed (generally around 325-350 for anywhere from 10-20 minutes, depending on the recipe). Consider propping the oven open with a wooden spoon to prevent the humidity from building up in the oven (which will make the cookies a more chewy/sticky consistency).

Make the ganache. I recommend using Serious Eats’ recipe for a bittersweet chocolate cream ganache as a base. One recipe of ganache was more than enough to fill my four recipes of macarons, so don’t worry about running out, and do be adventurous and create a few flavors out of it.

Once you’ve made the ganache, divide it into three or four bowls and mix in additional flavoring. Here are a few ideas:

• Coffee: Mix two or three tablespoons of coffee grounds into the ganache (one at a time, tasting between to make sure you’re happy with the flavor strength). This was a VERY popular flavor.
• Peppermint: Melt 10-20 Hershey’s Candy Cane Kisses, Andes Peppermint Crunch, or similar soft, creamy, peppermint candy (usually available near Christmas) in a mug in the microwave (30 seconds on high and stirring afterward should be sufficient) and mix the melted candy into the ganache. Add more if you want a stronger peppermint flavor. If you want a minty flavor at another time of year, try regular Andes or mint chocolate chips, which some grocery stores now sell. This was by far the most popular flavor of ganache that I tried.
• Spicy Chili: Mix a little cayenne pepper or chili pepper into the chocolate (start with a small amount such as a quarter teaspoon as this can get spicy quickly). I wanted to try this idea but was afraid I wouldn’t have enough ganache if it didn’t work out. Having seen the volume of leftover ganache I had, I wish I’d tried it. Next time!
• Amaretto: Mix two or three tablespoons of finely ground almonds into the ganache (again, one at a time until you’re happy with the flavor).
• Hazelnut: Mix two or three tablespoons of finely ground hazelnuts into the ganache (again, one at a time until you’re happy with the flavor).

Unfortunately I forgot to take photos of the ganache-making process. Instead I was a bit preoccupied with figuring out how to rescue my ganache after I realized I had used unsweetened chocolate as opposed to bittersweet chocolate. If you have ever wondered, I can assure you that there is a BIG difference between the two. And if you ever make the same mistake, yes, you can mix in granulated sugar to sweeten it (you’ll want to add quite a bit), and yes, you can then microwave the already-made ganache to melt the sugar granules into the mixture. However, you will need to wait quite a while (as in hours) for the ganache to re-thicken, and it will tend to want to separate as a result so you’ll need to stir it. While the consistency will differ somewhat from your original ganache as a result, it will still taste just as good, so don’t worry, you haven’t ruined it and you don’t need to go buy a jar of nutella as a quick replacement filling. Not that I considered doing that, of course. :)

Fill the cookies with ganache and let them sit for about a day before eating to let the flavors blend together. You might think this wouldn’t make a big difference, but it does.

Macaron Preservation: I searched a bit for whether macarons keep well enough to make ahead. I saw mixed advice, from saying that professional macarons would keep for five days to saying that even waiting one day for the flavors to mix might run the risk of the macarons drying out and becoming chewy. I saw one suggestion to freeze them (we did not end up trying this), and I saw several recommendations to not refridgerate them as it might change the texture. I went ahead and made the macarons ahead of time anyway, and everyone enjoyed them. Some cookies lasted longer than others (I think that the moisture of the ganache helped the larger ones stay fresh longer), and some definitely got chewy by a week later, but I think that part of that was probably also my not having made them as well as I could have to begin with. So if you really want to make macarons, try to make them as close to gifting/enjoying them as possible, but don’t worry too much about it because everyone except for food snobs will enjoy them regardless of whether they’re a little chewy. And they’ll appreciate the fact that you took the effort to make them.

You can also make cute inexpensive packaging for the macarons if you’re gifting them by placing a few in snack-size ziplock baggies, piercing a corner, and running a ribbon through to attach a homemade tag.

This also works very nicely for protecting the cookies when mailing them.

I’ve created a few photo books in the past of trips taken and favorite places, but for a while now I’ve been thinking about using a photo book service such as Blurb to make a cookbook of some of my favorite recipes. While this might have been a fairly pricey undertaking just a few years ago, over the last few years photo book services’ prices have come down and their quality has gone up, resulting in your being able to make a personalized book that looks store-quality for close to the same price that you’d pay for a new hardback cookbook in a store. In fact, now that photo book services have picked up on the popularity of Groupon and LivingSocial, it’s actually relatively easy to make a book for cheaper than what you’d pay in the store if you shop around for a good deal.

Shopping around for a photo book coupon might sound like more trouble than it’s worth, but it’s not as difficult as you’d think.

First let’s go over what I don’t recommend:

• Do not click city-by-city to search for deals on Groupon or LivingSocial. It’s not fun and generally doesn’t prove to be worth the effort. I speak from experience.
• You could try to google photo book groupons, but the problem with this is that it generally returns people’s blog posts about expired deals rather than any current deals.

Now for what I would recommend:

• If you’re already partial to a particular photo book service, check that service’s website for deals or, better yet, get on their email list. They often email discounts that aren’t advertised online, especially close to gift-giving holidays like Christmas or Valentine’s Day.
• If you’re looking for the best deal available or you’d rather wait for a really good groupon to come out for your favorite photo book service, watch and wait. Last summer, after using the not-recommended city-by-city search method and finally finding a groupon for a photo book service I hadn’t heard of, I googled reviews of that photo book service to see if it was a worthwhile deal. In the process, I stumbled across a blogger who tracks active deals for photo book services on her site. I found and used two deals for photo books through her site, and since then I’ve been telling everyone I know to check her site for deals before ordering a photo book. And speaking of deals, she’s offering a giveaway of a year’s worth of free photo books on her site right now. If you’re interested, I’d recommend checking it out ASAP as it ends today.

So, back to the cookbook idea, the added benefit of creating a cookbook using Blurb (as opposed to another photo book service) is that, if I were to only include my own recipes in the book (and therefore avoid any possibility of plagiarism), I could in theory make it available for other people in the Blurb community to order. I’m not sure yet of what type of cookbook I would make, but I love the idea of publishing my own book! So, I’ll just keep the idea in mind until I think of something I really want to create. Once I do, though, you’ll hear about it! :)

Have you ever used a photo book service to create a cookbook of your favorite recipes? Or to create photo books in general? Have you shared or sold a book on Blurb (or any other photo book service that offers a similar sharing/selling setup)? Do you have any tips based on your book-making or book-selling experience? I’d love to hear them!

While in Maine, we tried lobster rolls twice: once on the way into Maine, and once the next day on the way out. They were delicious both days, although slightly different each time. What did not change, however, is how ridiculously expensive lobster is. At every place we looked up, it usually cost around $15-17 for a bit of lobster and garnish on a hot dog bun with some potato chips or fries. Crazy.

We had lobster rolls for the first time in Portland, ME at Portland Lobster Co.

These lobster rolls were pretty basic, with lobster and lettuce in a toasted bun and a lemon squeezed over the top. The flavors were subtle since there weren’t really toppings to bring out the flavor of the lobster, but the lemon over the lobster made it pretty refreshing. It wasn’t quite the mouth-watering experience I’d expected from hearing everyone talk about lobster rolls on the East Coast, but it was good.

The place had an awesome view and live music, so needless to say it was packed.

We had our second lobster rolls on the trip at the Lobster Shack in Ogunquit, ME. In a town full of very touristy restaurants and shops, this place was family-owned and had a very local and non-touristy feel to it, which was nice. Of course, I’m sure the majority of their business is from tourists (and I know I’m a tourist), but it’s nice to feel like you’re going somewhere a little more authentic and local. :)

These lobster rolls were delicious! They had a little bit of mayo mixed with the lobster, which really brought out the lobster’s flavor. Mmmm…

Oh, and I learned that hot dog buns in this region look like a slice of bread folded and toasted until you notice that it’s actually more like the top half of a really thick slice of bread with a slit cut in the top. Interesting.

We only spent about a day in Boston, but we started off with a delicious brunch of bagel sandwiches and waffles at Mariposa Bakery. They only have a couple of outdoor tables, but if you manage to catch one they’re great for people-watching. :)

The most exciting food experience by far was encountering Wachusett Blueberry beer. It tastes like you’re drinking a beer but also eating blueberries. It’s not really sweet, just refreshing. Yum. The first time I had it at The Joshua Tree, where they floated a few blueberries in the top, which I thought was an awesome touch. I tried to take a picture of it but unfortunately the lighting was too low for my camera.

I ordered it for a second time when we visited the Cheers bar (I had no idea the bar that Cheers was based on is located in Boston until we overheard someone asking where to find it).

This time around it was a much more expensive beer (with no blueberries floating on the top this time!) in a much more touristy atmosphere, but we can now say we’ve had a drink “where everybody knows your name.”

Holiday Iced Sugar Cookies

Step-by-Step Photo Instructions

From Mom and Grandma

Cookies

1 C butter (We used to use shortening like Crisco in these, but this time I used butter)
1 C sugar
2 eggs (don’t worry about beating them before combining them with the rest of the wet ingredients)
2 t vanilla
1 C buttermilk
5 C flour
2 t baking powder
1.5 t salt
1 t baking soda

Cream the sugar and butter.

Combine the wet ingredients in a separate bowl and beat together.

Sift the dry ingredients together into a separate bowl.

Gradually alternate adding the dry and wet ingredients to the sugar and butter mixture and mix until you have a dough. The dough will be thick, so I recommend using a strong rubber spatula for this to give you more leverage and make it easier to scrape the sides of the bowl and cut the ingredients into the dough. When you’re done, separate the dough into at least two parts and wrap each with plastic wrap. I separated mine into five parts since I have a very small work space for rolling out dough. Refridgerate the dough for at least one hour. If you don’t need the cookies that day, you can leave the dough in the refridgerator for a day or two and roll and bake the cookies later (keep in mind that the dough will get MUCH harder if you do this, so it will be a little tougher to roll out unless you leave the dough out of the refridgerator for a few minutes before rolling).

Roll the dough to 1/4″-1/2″ thick and cut cookies. Go closer to 1/4″ if you prefer thin cookies, although they’ll be much more fragile and retain less moisture this way. After some trial and error in refreshing my memory while making this batch, I remembered that I prefer to roll my dough a bit thicker (closer to 1/2″ thick), which results in much thicker, stronger cookies that are a little more moist and soft inside than the thinner version (I’d compare it to the inside of a scone). I think this might actually be a photo of one of the thinner batches of cookies after they came out of the oven, so this is about the thickness they should have been before going into the oven.

Bake the cookies at 375 °F until they’re just starting to brown at the edges. My earlier recipe said 15 minutes, but with my current oven, I found that the thinner and smaller cookies (like those below) only needed about 5-6 minutes, and the thicker and larger cookies only needed about 10-12 minutes. So keep an eye on your first batch to figure out what timing is better for your preferred size and thickness of cookies.

This was a batch of larger cookies that I cut too thin (closer to 1/4″), making them much more fragile (we had a couple of gingerbread people casualties while icing them).

Icing

Unfortunately I forgot to take photos while making the icing, so I don’t have step-by-step photos for this part of the recipe. Refer to my original recipe for icing instructions and decorating tips. All of the cookies in the following photo were decorated using the butter-knife technique.

And of course I always like to leave a few uniced (usually whatever is left when I get sick of icing cookies, including the more difficult ones like snowflakes). I think they’re very pretty uniced, too, though.

Now, this next recommendation might sound like a contradiction, but I’ll explain: If you only plan to visit Mount Vernon once, I recommend that you visit around Christmas.

Why?

Here are the reasons:

For the same price as you would usually pay for entrance (at present, it’s $15 per person), you also get to see several Washington-esque Christmas trees in the visitor center.

You also get to see a beautiful gingerbread replica of Mount Vernon created by Chef Roland Mesnier (White House Executive Pastry Chef, 1979-2004).

And you get to see some gingerbread houses made by local schools.

And you get to see a chocolate-making demonstration that includes a sample of a traditional chocolate holiday drink (although the demonstration tent gets a bit crowded so we weren’t able to see much).

And you get to see the presidentally-pardoned turkey.

And you get to see Aladdin, the Christmas camel.

And best of all, you get to see the third floor of the Mount Vernon mansion, which is only open to the public during the holiday season (this is the main reason I recommend going during the holiday season). On asking why, we found out that the third floor still has the original flooring, so it wouldn’t hold up to year-round traffic. The third floor has the room that Martha Washington lived and died in in after George Washington died. It also has a couple more guest rooms and an interior view of the cupola.

Unfortunately no photography is allowed inside the mansion, but you can take all of the pictures you want everywhere else on the mansion grounds. If you’re curious to see the interior of the mansion before visiting, the official website has a great virtual tour of the mansion.

You can also visit the original burial place of Washington…

…and the new burial place of Washington as of 1831.

I also recommend checking out the dock near Washington’s original burial, as it has a beautiful view.

And if you visit the visitor center, check out the inverted relief sculpture of Washington’s head that seems to turn as you walk around it, and make sure you watch the video in the next room that explains the process that was used to create life-sized replicas of what Washington is thought to have looked like at various stages in his life. The replicas themselves are spread throughout the visitor center.

One last tip: During the holiday season, you can also go on a candlelit tour led by Martha Washington that includes hot cider and cookies and a few stations with people dressed in period giving explanations and demonstrations. However, these tours are an extra $20 per person on top of the $15 estate admission fee, and I’ve heard both from a friend who visited in previous years and from reviews on tripadvisor.com that the candlelit tour isn’t worth the extra money. And I believed them, considering that it would have to be a pretty amazing tour for me to feel like it was worth a $35 visit. So we just visited during the day.

The tree is a bit shorter than last year since a new tree was planted after the old tree’s trunk snapped in a windy storm, but I think I like it shorter.

Every year the tree is decorated for the holidays (there’s a lighting ceremony every year, although I’ve heard it’s pretty tough to get tickets), and a circle of smaller trees surround it. We discovered this year that the smaller trees are each dedicated to one of the US states, territories, and districts, and each is decorated by a different local group or business.

We also discovered this year that if you go early enough in the evening, you can get much closer to the tree and see the model train tracks set up around its base. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find any information online about what the cutoff time is for visiting the tree up close as opposed to just seeing it lit from afar as we did last year.

If you’d like to visit the National Christmas tree, the tree will be lit lit from dusk until 11pm every evening until January 1, 2012, and musical performances are held every evening (6-8:30pm on weeknights, 4-8:30pm on weekends), as well. About.com has much more detailed information about visiting than the official website does, so I recommend checking out their information page before you go.

After we visited the National Botanic Garden for the holidays last year (and loved it), we heard that there are musical performances on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 6-8pm, so we made sure to visit when we could check that out this year. An awesome choral group was performing holiday carols when we visited, including a very fun and animated rendition of “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.”

After listening for a little bit, we walked around and checked out the decorations. The front atrium of the garden is decked out with poinsettias every year, many of which surround the gorgeous hand-carved wooden replicas of buildings around DC that are only displayed during the holidays (these are my favorite part of visiting).

And in the room to the left of the front atrium they set up model train tracks in a fantasy land built and carved from all natural materials. I found out this year that they change the theme every year, as last year the theme was the seven wonders of the world, and this year the theme seemed to be structures inspired by animals (from scorpions to fairies). I was happy to see that they kept the beautiful castle and hot air balloons that towered over the rest of the structures and train tracks, though.

The room also contains model trains surrounding replicas of famous homes like the Van Buren mansion.

The holiday decorations will be on display until January 2, 2012. If you just want to see the holiday decorations, I recommend visiting on an evening other than Tuesday or Thursday as you’ll have an easier time getting around without disturbing the performance. If you’re interested in seeing a free performance, check the National Botanic Garden’s schedule of events for who is playing each night.