A Groundhog Gala

I found these Groundhog Day cookies online, and with my body temporarily taken over by Martha Stewart, figured we could make these pretty easily. Now before we start with the Ingy version of Groundhog Day cookies, let's take a good look at the inspiration cookie. Really cute, obviously a groundhog, and to be honest, they really weren't that hard. But like all things around here, you know there's going to be something that goes awry.
I lined everybody up at the kitchen counter and the babies actually did a great job helping. Helping themselves to Hershey's Kisses. (Which is what that little hill is made of.) Reed was able to hold his kiss and just give it a little lick before putting it inside the dough, but Kyle's was usually eaten before we could get around to his turn again.
And no, Kyle doesn't have a scar to match Reed's. That would be chocolate.

My first batch of cookies didn't come out so well. My body has finally adjusted to this altitude, but my baking has not. I used a lot less dough for the next batches. And I hate to talk about nipplear areas twice in less than a week, but um, yeah, elephant in the room...that's what I'm seeing too.

While the next batch was baking, I put JR to work making the groundhogs. Here's my attempt at the requisite fancy photography shot found in all food blogs.

JR's completed groundhog! Yes, ours turned out looking more like owls, but I think part of the owl look is because I was supposed to "trim" the bottom of the cookie. I tried to "trim", but I broke the cookie. And when it comes to cooking/baking, I follow one simple rule: if it's too much work or seems too hard just skip it. So yeah, we just skipped that step.

Now I know you've been waiting patiently for a good Ingy mishap, and more than just cookies that resemble nipplear areas. My car battery died yesterday (died, as in, wouldn't turn over and had to be towed to the shop). Unfortunately, I had to leave before the last batch of cookies was done to go pick it up. I told Harry he was in charge of taking the cookies out, and set the kitchen timer (instead of the baking timer) for 3:00 minutes. Um, let's just say leaving a 17 year-old-boy that's never even seen an oven until he came to live in my house was the wrong thing to do. He somehow missed the beeping of the oven, and the smell of cookies burning. Here's how the last batch turned out.
My house still stinks!

But here are the Groundhog Day cookies that did survive. Again, I skipped a step that I thought would be too much work, and just let JR make the "grass" out of green sprinkles instead of frosting.

And as we were eating them last night, Harry and JR said they'll take more winter since they want more snow. Jason and I said we wouldn't mind a little spring. And I'm not sure if it was his shadow or El Nino dumping 7ft of snow in my front yard that scared Punxsutawney Phil back in his hole this morning, but either way, pretty sure we've got quite a bit more winter ahead of us.