![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/2012-xmascookies2.jpg\" "\\"2012-xmascookies2\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nUsing these<\/a> super cool edible marker pens, I decorated tiny shortbread cookies. The pens have a paint brush-like tip and though they seem to have mixed reviews, I thought they were very easy to use. I whipped up the same recipe as these<\/a> and also used a gingerbread cookie recipe from here<\/a> (you can kind of see the gingerbread cookies in the image below). I like to avoid using raw egg whites for icing, so I found this<\/a> recipe which had the perfect consistency and gloss I wanted. I skipped the almond extract though.<\/p>\n These cookies are seriously mini (about 1.5 inches in height), and I swear I must’ve gobbled at least twenty of them while assembling the gifts.<\/p>\n Then I packaged them up in cute little jars with the requisite baker’s twine.<\/p>\n And\u00a0I tried my hand at caramel making, which felt kind of like a science experiment. The bubbling that happened when I poured in the cream mixture freaked me out, but all was well. Now, these are literally melt-in-your-mouth confections in that they didn’t really harden. At all. Ooey, gooey, delicious, but crazy messy – that’s what they were. They are probably not the most appetizing looking things (notice how I deliberately did\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0focus on the actual caramel), but I personally loved them. The flavor is intense and I’ve been dropping one into my daily homemade latte these last couple of weeks – tastes amazing! I used Ina’s version<\/a> and think I may not have gotten up to the correct temperature to get the caramels to harden.<\/p>\n We distributed them to friends and succumbed to our own sugar coma – I will definitely be making the cookies and caramels again next year!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" …I forgot to share with you my little goody gift packs I made for the holidays, and felt they deserved a bit of blog love. Using these super cool edible marker pens, I decorated tiny shortbread cookies. The pens have a paint brush-like tip and though they seem to have mixed reviews, I thought they were very easy to use. I whipped up the same recipe as these and also used a gingerbread cookie recipe from here (you can kind of see the gingerbread cookies in the image below). I like to avoid using raw egg whites for icing, so I found this recipe which had the perfect consistency and gloss I wanted. I skipped the almond extract though. These cookies are seriously mini (about 1.5 inches in height), and I swear I must’ve gobbled at least twenty of them while assembling the gifts. Then I packaged them up in cute little jars with the requisite baker’s twine. And\u00a0I tried my hand at caramel making, which felt kind of like a science experiment. The bubbling that happened when I poured in the cream mixture freaked me out, but all was well. Now, these are literally melt-in-your-mouth confections in that they didn’t really harden. At all. Ooey, gooey, delicious, but crazy messy – that’s what they were. They are probably not the most appetizing looking things (notice how I deliberately did\u00a0not\u00a0focus on the actual caramel), but I personally loved them. The flavor is intense and I’ve been dropping one into my daily homemade latte these last couple of weeks – tastes amazing! I used Ina’s version and think I may not have gotten up to the correct temperature to get the caramels to harden. We distributed them to friends and succumbed to our own sugar coma – I will definitely be making the cookies and caramels again next year! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-cooking","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1401"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1420,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401\/revisions\/1420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n