Applesauce Ornaments

Quick disclaimer on these little treats: They take a loooooooong time to dry. We baked them in the oven (per the instructions) for two hours and they still had to air dry for four days (maybe we made them too thick?). Also, as you will see, they require some "big people" help, as Maddie would say.

I can't find the exact recipe we used (but there is one HERE), but we used equal parts of cinnamon and applesauce (about one cup each). We also used about a teaspoon of nutmeg and stirred it all up.

We flattened the dough out and used more cinnamon to prevent sticking (just like you'd normally use flour).

Then came the part that was a teensy-bit difficult: cutting them out with cookie cutters. Daddy was a huge help here; it wasn't easy to transfer the cut shape to the baking sheet.

See, he ended up doing it mostly on his own. Thanks Michael. :)

After three bazillion hours of drying time (baked in a 170 degree oven for 2 hours AND left to dry on a cooling rack for four days), they were ready to be painted. We used acrylic paints (and lots of paintbrushes because it's very difficult for my two year old to effectively wash paint out of a brush before using a new color).

And... Paint!

Here are some of our finished creations (I had fun, too). We're going to string a ribbon through, wrap them up, and give them as gifts!