Gilded Gingerbread Mooncakes

So, remember my chocolate-cherry mooncakes? I loved those so much, and am always looking for an excuse to use the mooncake molds. When the holidays rolled around I figured that tiny molded desserts would be a great thing to contribute to the various gatherings we had planned, so I started brainstorming flavor combinations.

For my family Christmas celebration this year I think I’d like to make chocolate-peppermint and chocolate-orange-ginger, with the latter involving a gingerbread outer crust rather than a standard chocolate one. Of course, since I don’t want to use an untried recipe I’ve decided to do a gingerbread variation beforehand, just to test things out.

Ninja Cookies!

*** By the way, this is my 100th post! I can’t believe I’ve done this many in under a year– thanks to everyone for following my exploits, and I’m looking forward to some great new projects for the next 100 posts!***

In keeping with the ninja theme (it was a really cute baby shower), I finally broke out my ninjabread men cookie cutters and made ninja cookies. After the mini animal donuts I wasn’t exactly in the mood to make more icing, much less multiple colors of icing in small batches, so I decided to make these more traditional in color (black) and use my extra-dark cocoa to make chocolate cutout cookies. This way I only had to use a little melted white chocolate for the faces, and I could decorate the rest with melted dark chocolate.

This is my go-to recipe for chocolate cutout cookies. They don’t really spread at all during baking, so they’re ideal for detailed cookie cutters. Skipping the chilling of the unrolled dough makes the process go faster (soft dough rolls out more easily anyway), and freezing the cut cookies helps them keep their shape in the oven. Plus, they’re delicious– buttery, with good chocolate flavor and a hint of salt.