Elaine Tucker’s Belfast home is infused with the scents of nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger. The smell is almost as glorious as the view from the dining room overlooking Belfast Harbor. Tucker and her husband, Tony Kulik, built their house from the ground up, and have spent the last decade adding artistic finishing touches.
Today the kitchen is cluttered with gingerbread girls and boys in various states of completion. Tucker hasn’t made her gingerbread portrait cookies since her own children, now 32, 36, and 37, were waist-high, and the whole family lived under one roof in Orono.
Back in the 1980s, Tucker would make cookies for her daughters’ friends and teachers each winter when they attended Asa C. Adams Elementary School. “Their third grade teacher, Mrs. Carr, saved all three cookies—one from each of the girls—for years,” Tucker says. “I have no idea how she preserved them so well.”
Mrs. Carr’s collection is a true testament to the workmanship Tucker puts into decorating each and every cookie. Before she puts the cookie cutouts in the oven to bake, she makes a hole in the heads—this way the cookies can be strung with ribbon and hung on a Christmas tree. “If you keep them dry they can last for a couple of years,” she says. “We had quite a few on the tree for a while. I’ve found that the attic is a good place to store them.” Tucker’s gingerbread beauties come from very humble beginnings. Tucker and her first husband spent a few years working in foreign aid in Malaysia. In fact, all three of her daughters were born there. Christmas in Malaysia was nothing like the New England Christmases of her youth, so Tucker drew two gingerbread cookie cutter patterns and had the local tinker create them out of tin. “He was used to fixing pots and pans, so the cookie cutters were something new for him,” Tucker says.
Thirty years later, these same cookie cutters are now making cookies for Tucker’s grandchildren, who live as far away as Arizona and the Netherlands. “Mom’s gingerbread people were anticipated with as much enthusiasm as the arrival of Santa,” says Tucker’s youngest daughter, Antonia Opitz, who lives in Burlington, Vermont. “With so many memories and traditions being lost in the shuffle of busy lives, there are a few gems in my life—like these cookies—that will never die. These cookies are a perfect example of her talent, patience, and heart.”
While it may seem that Tucker’s gingerbread cookie recipe is heavy on the spices, she makes them that way for a reason. “If you’re not going to eat them and hang them on the tree instead, you want them to smell really good,” she says. And they do. Making the dough and cutting the cookies is the easy part. What makes these cookies so special is in the frosting.
One batch of frosting is enough for about 15 large, six-inch cookies. Tucker suggests making all the icing at once, taking out the amount you need for one color at a time, and keeping the rest of the icing covered—placing a damp paper towel directly on the icing and plastic wrap over a prechilled bowl.
Tucker finds her food coloring at the Belfast hardware store. A little color goes a long way, she cautions.
Once the cookies have been baked and cooled, step one of the decorating process begins. Tucker spoons the stiff white frosting into a plastic-coated pastry bag and squeezes out piping around the entire cookie. “I pipe around the clothes, make stripes, polka dots, shoes, and the face,” Tucker says. To cover large sections of the cookie—like the face and clothes—Tucker thins the icing with lemon juice to make a spreadable consistency.
Tucker uses her creativity to personalize the cookies, adding glasses, curls to the hair, and dressing the cookies in clothing and colors that match the person she’s making them for. Today she is displaying cookies she made for her coworkers at Better Homes and Gardens/Town and Country Realtors, as well as cookies in the likeness of each of her six grandchildren.
If it sounds like they take a lot of time—they do. Tucker makes sure that the piped icing is dry before she starts filling in the background colors of the face and clothes. Then those layers need to dry and harden before she adds other details, like the eyes, mouths, and clothing decorations. And to say that Tucker is a perfectionist would most certainly be an understatement.
Regardless of the hard work, a home smelling of gingerbread cookies will surely put you in the mood for the holidays. And whether you hang the cookies on the tree or break down and gobble them up, the rewards are well worth it.
Cookie Ingredients:
3 cups white flour
3 tsp. ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup softened butter
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
Icing Ingredients:
2 lbs. confectioners’ sugar
1 tsp. cream of tartar
6 egg whites
Directions:
Mix flour, spices, and salt together and set aside. In a large bowl, blend butter and sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the molasses, egg, and vanilla, and continue beating. Slowly add the flour mixture and beat at low speed until blended. The batter will be very thick. Wrap the cookie dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate until completely chilled—at least 4 hours.
Preheat oven to 350°F. Roll out half of the dough at a time to just under 1/4 inch thickness on a floured surface and cut the figures. Place on ungreased cookie sheet.Bake for 12–15 minutes for hard, firm cookies. Soft cookies will not support the layers of icing decoration.
For icing:
Beat the egg whites at high speed until they thicken. Blend sugar and cream of tartar, and add to the egg whites. Beat on high until stiff—about 5 minutes.
Editor’s update: The colorful cookies Elaine Tucker made that day for her coworkers are still on display at her office in Belfast.
