Making gingerbread was messy, fun

“Run, run, as fast as you can. You can’t catch me. I’m the Gingerbread Man!” was the phrase going through my mind on a recent Sunday afternoon.
At the beginning of the school year, granddaughter Emma’s class did a geography project involving the gingerbread man. Relatives and family friends were encouraged to send postcards detailing the gingerbread man’s exploits. Then the teacher would discuss the various locations where the gingerbread man had been spotted.
So when I happened upon a recipe for gingerbread man s’mores, I thought it would be a perfect project for the grandkids.
In a way, I was correct.
I measured the flour into the biggest mixing bowl I could find then called for any children who wanted to help. The girls, Emma and bonus granddaughter, Paige, were the first to volunteer. They both wanted to stir. I measured some ginger and Jacob decided to join in by adding the spices along with the rest of the ingredients.
Before long, the girls tired of stirring and Jacob took over. When the dough was half mixed and all lumpy, Jacob peered into the bowl and declared, “It looks like poop!” Sadly, he was right. Nathaniel, the other bonus grandchild, took a short turn at stirring before abandoning the project as too girly. I tried telling him that most famous chefs were male but he would rather be a macho ball player than a girly chef. When you are nine years old, it is all about image.
I took over the stirring and the dough finally came together. Then I divided it into four portions. Jacob made a giant worm out of his before handing it over to the baby to be anointed with slobber.
Each child got to roll out a portion of the dough. Baby Nicholas was relieved of his slobbery snake and it was also rolled out. Then the children ran outside to play while the dough chilled and I cleaned up the mess.
Eventually, even Nathaniel had a turn at the cookie cutter and the cookies were all baked. Then came the fun part.
The idea was to put melted chocolate on one cookie, marshmallow fluff on another cookie, then sandwich them together before decorating them. It didn’t quite work out that way.
Emma, Paige and Jacob each got a tube of colored decorating gel. They used the melted chocolate to glue on candy eyes before covering the cookies with a variety of squiggles, dots and amoeba-like shapes. They also made ninja gingerbread men. Jacob made green snakes on the table. When the girls decided their creations were finished I was instructed to apply the melted chocolate and marshmallow fluff to the sticky cookies.
Jacob tired of decorating first. He took the knife used for spreading chocolate and stabbed the remaining gingerbread men. Baby Nicholas was treated to a few of the broken pieces. He ate a leg or possibly a foot then he expertly crumbled the rest onto the floor. Nobody else ate any.
That isn’t quite accurate. They had all dipped their fingers into the chocolate and marshmallow fluff. And once they decided they had enough of decorating, they ate the remaining candy eyes. I should have said that nobody ate any of the completed cookies. Now you know why I wasn’t concerned with Nicholas slobbering over his portion.
But eating them wasn’t the point. They were all having fun and using their imaginations. For several hours they were concentrating on making the biggest mess possible. And it was all non-toxic even if at one point it did look like poop.[[In-content Ad]]