Halloween Cookies and Pumpkin Carving

Panta and Nora rolling out the dough

Since caramel apples took so long, we had to put off our pumpkin carving until the following week.  To this event we added cookie baking, mostly because I have a ridiculous amount of Halloween themed cookie cutters, but also because, seriously, who doesn't like cookies? Also, baking is much more fun if you have an industrial-style dishwasher at your disposal (like Nora and Lars do in their castle).  The cookies are the same recipe I always use, the one so lovingly written out by my grandmother on an old, yellowed, flour-covered note card, and copied by my mother onto a slightly less yellow and flower-covered note card.  These cookies are special.  It's just not Halloween without some pumpkin cookies somewhere.  I even made them last year for our Thanksgiving feast.  This year we had slightly less vibrant food coloring, and slightly more warped looking America cookies, but we had fun.  And this time we actually got around to carving the pumpkins.

Here is the tried-and-true sugar cookie recipe, for those who are interested.

Sugar Cookies:
2 3/4 c flour
2 3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/2 c shortening
1 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Cream sugar and shortening.  Add eggs. Add vanilla. Sift and add dry ingredients. Chill 10 minutes. Roll and cut. Bake at 400(F) 10-12 minutes.

Frosting:
2 tbsp butter
1 1/2 c confectioners sugar
Cream above. Add:
2 tbsp milk
1/4 tsp vanilla
Beat until fluffy

Panta, Nora and Lars

Mary and Me

Note the upside down vampire bat

Frankenstein cookies

Cookies that were supposed to be shaped like America, but ended up looking more like fish so we decorated them accordingly

Fish/America cookie

Panta (Kansas) loves Canada

Bat/bowtie

Pumpkins!

Guts

Panta = 5 year old when it comes to pumpkin guts

Nora, taking out some aggression on that pumpkin!

Mary

Finished products

Thanksgiving, Austria Edition

Pumpkin cookies

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. To be fair, who doesn't love eating tons of delicious food, appreciating good company, and eventually passing out wherever the tryptophan kicks in?

This year was my very fist Thanksgiving away from my family. That's right - in all of my 23 years, Thanksgiving 2010 was the first totally and completely away from the Forbringer clan. Last year I tried to celebrate with Dan's family, but ended up flying back that weekend anyway. So this year was going to be something totally new; an exciting experience with the potential to be totally amazing or totally disastrous. I think we knew all along that there was no way it could turn out terribly, though I had my doubts when it came time to find the necessary ingredients.

There are quite a few Americans in Salzburg, so we decided on a potluck-style Thanksgiving feast, with each of us making enough of our favorite Thanksgiving dishes to feed an army of hungry foreigners. My tasks: pie and cornbread. Which quickly turned to pie, cornbread and cookies once I received the cookie cutters my mom sent me for Halloween. Though I couldn't quite justify the ghost and bat -shaped cutters, I managed to use the pumpkins and (my personal favorites) the cutters shaped like America. In addition, I helped the formerly vegetarian Maija with the Turkey (though she definitely did 99% of the work). The gravy, however, was 100% my job.

Finding the necessary ingredients was quite the challenge. There is no such thing as crisco here, nor is there a supply of canned pumpkin. All pumpkin comes from the vegetable itself, which (thankfully) I did not end up having to do. Even more challenging is the fact that ALL squash is called Kurbis - butternut, acorn, pumpkin, summer, you name it. No differentiation. Thank goodness my task was apple pie, not pumpkin. Still, there doesn't seem to be anywhere to buy pie tins in all of Austria (or Germany for that matter). I eventually used some makeshift, funny-shaped tins from IKEA that did the trick but weren't ideal. Also difficult to locate: vanilla extract, baking soda, baking powder, brown sugar and turkeys. Yes, turkeys. We finally found two medium sized birds, unfrozen, and worked with those. Thank goodness - Thanksgiving just wouldn't have been right without one (or two) large turkeys.

Dinner itself was hosted at Maija's. As I mentioned, each of the Americans brought food to share. Our feast consisted of: antipasto, two turkeys, chestnut stuffing, sweet potatoes, cornbread, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans with onion, cookies, apple pie, pumpkin pie and pecan pie. Any Brits/Germans/Austrians who joined brought beverages as their contributions.

I think I would call it a success. I might even go so far as to call it a great success. Even without the company of my real family, my family of Salzburg Fulbrighters made it feel like a slice of home right here in Austria. And I came away with some stellar recipes - assuming Mom is willing to let us upgrade from Pepperidge Farms stuffing to chestnut stuffing.

Pumpkin cookies and cookies shaped like America (thanks to Mom's cookie cutters)

The setup

From left: Dave, Mary, Ali, Anne Marie, Brendan, Nick

Leslie with one of my America cookies! They were a big hit

Maija, hostess with the mostest

The bird (one of two)

Me, making gravy. Photo courtesy of Ali

Some of the group hanging out waiting for the food to be done

From left: Emily, Ali and Nick

Happy Thanksgiving!

Cheers-ing

Ali's plate of food

A little mood-lighting

Leslie cracking up over Ja! brand whipped cream

Post dinner, when the tryptophan started to kick in

Dave and Brendan, enjoying the whipped cream

From left: Maija, Emily, me, Ali

The most important discovery ever

I have pictures to post from Vienna and even from as long ago as Thanksgiving, but I have made the executive decision that this post is even more important. Today I made a very important discovery. Every year we make the same Christmas cookies: fruit cookies and Zimtsterne (cinnamon stars). Both are difficult to make - the instructions of the Zimtsterne even say to mix until a 'gooey mess,' or something along those lines. I knew that they were German recipes, but I had no idea how prevalent they were! Apparently the friut cookies are a kind of Lebkuchen - German/Austrian Christmas cookies/cakes. If we made the cookies thicker they would be very similar to things I've tried here. But more interestingly, I've found a ton of Zimtsterne!! Not only that, but they sell the dough, pre-made, in the supermarket! WHAT. The dough that is a gooey mess; the dough that makes the cookies a true undertaking every Christmas season.

I am making some cookies from this dough and bringing them home. We'll see if they taste anything like our traditional recipe.

Zimtsterne in the supermarket!!

AND pre-made Zimtstern dough