C's work has a "Graze-a-thon" each year, where they're invited to bring goodies in to work to share. That way they don't have to give out gifts to everyone. I thought I'd be adventurous this year, and I tried something new - gingerbread cookies! I think they turned out rather nice.
Of course, Mama isn't allowed to just bake cookies. I have two little baker's apprentices. They were facinated with stamping out the cookies with the cookie cutters, and S discovered very quickly that it was more fun to stuff dough into her mouth than to make cookies out of it.
She also coated herself from her waist to the tips of her hair in flour.
L thought the whole thing was very interesting, and she didn't believe me one bit when I tried to tell her the rolling pin was a bit heavy for her or to let mommy use the spatula to lift the cookies off the table. If I set it down, L picked it up, and she had a ball!
The second reason for making cookies was for our friends who were coming over for dinner before leaving town for the holidays. I thought it would be fun for the kids to decorate cookies.
Mostly, I was right. L and S were even happier with the icing than with the making of the cookies, and S, true to character, soon figured out she could squeeze the icing out onto her fingers and lick them off.
L's friend, a little girl her same age, refused to decorate cookes, but her little brother sure had fun with them.
What surprised me, though, was the big kids in the house. No sooner had the cookies and icing hit the table, than I saw this:
And this:
The big boys decorated (and ate) more cookies each than all the kids combined!So, the next day, to continue the gingerbread theme, I pulled out my gingerbread house kit. My friend, R, had some ideas for putting it together, and as she has more decorating experience than I do, I invited her over to share her expertise. (It is my goal, one day, to do a house from scratch - make the pattern, bake the gingerbread, etc. But it's not happening yet.)
R also had a brilliant idea. Instead of putting the house together with icing and proping it up (or sitting there holding it up with your hands, like I usually do), why not make up some hard candy? Then dip the edges of the house in the hot candy, press them together, and watch them seal tight in seconds? Let me tell you, it worked like a charm. No gingerbread house in history was as sturdy as ours. Not to say there weren't any problems with that, but I'll get to that later.
The icing that came in the package was just that - icing, not decorator's frosting, and we started out with problems with the icing running. It made a really nice red roof for us, but the wreath we put on the back of the house slid quite a bit.
But that's all hard to notice when you've accidentally put the window on wrong. As we'd finished the hard candy and were trying to quickly get the house assembled before the candy hardened, we accidentally put one of the dormer windows together wrong. We didn't notice the problem until we stuck it to the house. And with the candy hardening so quickly, in the few seconds it took us to realize the window was wrong, the candy hardened. We tried to get it off, so we could fix it, but like I said, that candy didn't budge or wiggle.
But we did learn some things. 1 - leave the candy on the stove to keep it from setting until you're done assembling the house. 2 - make your own buttercream frosting to hold things together. 3 - check, check, and re-check your dormers.
R also had a brilliant idea. Instead of putting the house together with icing and proping it up (or sitting there holding it up with your hands, like I usually do), why not make up some hard candy? Then dip the edges of the house in the hot candy, press them together, and watch them seal tight in seconds? Let me tell you, it worked like a charm. No gingerbread house in history was as sturdy as ours. Not to say there weren't any problems with that, but I'll get to that later.
The icing that came in the package was just that - icing, not decorator's frosting, and we started out with problems with the icing running. It made a really nice red roof for us, but the wreath we put on the back of the house slid quite a bit.
But that's all hard to notice when you've accidentally put the window on wrong. As we'd finished the hard candy and were trying to quickly get the house assembled before the candy hardened, we accidentally put one of the dormer windows together wrong. We didn't notice the problem until we stuck it to the house. And with the candy hardening so quickly, in the few seconds it took us to realize the window was wrong, the candy hardened. We tried to get it off, so we could fix it, but like I said, that candy didn't budge or wiggle.
But we did learn some things. 1 - leave the candy on the stove to keep it from setting until you're done assembling the house. 2 - make your own buttercream frosting to hold things together. 3 - check, check, and re-check your dormers. 4 - Don't leave your two-year-old on a chair next to the counter where the gingerbread house is - you may return to find all the candies pulled off!
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