Gingerbread Santa Hats

I, like many of you out there, have (recently) joined Pinterest, a website that allows you to create virtual bulletin boards of things that you like, love, and/or admire - things that inspire you, things that you dream of making or baking or replicating someday. And this site, well...it can suck you in. Almost worse than Facebook. Just sayin'.

One day, while I was inside the vacuum that is Pinterest, I found these Santa hat treats, made of brownie, whipped cream and whole strawberries. C-U-T-E!

So, when my friends had a little Christmas get together this week, guess what I made?

Instead of brownies, I made gingerbread (from a box mix from Trader Joe's from my mom-in-law).

I baked the "cake" in a small rectangular Pyrex (glass) dish. I let it cool, and then I took a 2-inch round biscuit cutter and cut out circles like this...

Then, you're left with all the scraps that look like this...

Beware - it is VERY tempting to eat ALL of the scraps immediately. Don't do it! Save some for later!

 I washed and cut off the tops of the strawberries, then dried each one with a paper towel so that the cream would adhere to the berry.

There's that pumpkin plate again. I can't bring myself to put it in storage quite yet.

I was short on time, so I bought whipped cream in a can instead of doing my own...doing my own would have been better. I realized that I could have controlled the firmness of the cream better had I whipped it in my stand mixer. This cream sort of melted quicker than I was expecting.

Anyway, to assemble the hats, top each cake or brownie circle with cream, add a strawberry, and top the point of the berry with a teeny bit of cream to form the hat's pom-pom.

Note: If I had used my own whipped cream, I would have placed the strawberry directly on the cake, then piped the rim of the hat around the berry. Also, if you plan to serve these at another location than your home, I would assemble them at the place where the party is. I messed that up too (got too anxious and then the berries were sliding around in the car. Not good). Ah well. Shoulda-coulda-woulda blah blah blah. :)

The result is a sweet treat to share with friends and family. Add Chewy Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies to the plate, and you've got a party!

Voila!