Gingerbread Man part II

Waiting for the bake.... continued from yesterday .....

While waiting for it to be baked - took about half an hour - the children were given crayons and papers to draw with. Anita and I went for more food. When the biscuit were ready, it was time for the icing. It started again with explanation from the teacher, what to do, how to apply the icing. But by the time the children got hold of the icing, all those lessons went out of the window. I didn’t remember any instructions about putting icing on faces or other part of the body.

Out of the ovenAnd the real art begunAfter the icing were done, it was time to pack up. All together, it took two hours from the beginning to the end. Therefore, long concentration span was essential. None of the children in the class threw a tantrum however as everybody had fun pretending the dough to be like plasticine. My boys certainly did. How did their baking tasted? A bit too cinnamony if you understood what I meant.

Irfan preferred white. Splat!Mum also joined inAll spentIrfan especially enjoyed his experience even though he was rather apprehensive in the beginning. They both looked cute in their aprons and hats - unfortunately they did not get to keep the apron. Come to think of it, such baking activity made for a great birthday party. As Irfan’s was due in six weeks, we might actually plan to have it here. Maybe with a bit of baking activities thrown in. So watch this space.

Gingerbread Man part I

The boys with the original gingerbread man .... Daddy!During the school holidays, Marche has always been good at organising fun cooking classes for young children. Last year, Idlan enjoyed his pizza-making outing. This year, we signed both Idlan and Irfan up for gingerbread man making class. The class was available through-out the whole weekdays, but since I was only free yesterday afternoon, we signed them up to do it then. And oh boy, they had great fun.

Getting psyched .... Irfan warning his palmsGetting into gearIrfan preferred the sailor's lookThere were about 30 children who participated - a full house. We arrived early to have lunch - ironically, the boys had pizza. After the crowd gathered, the class started with explanation from the resident chef - the teacher. He explained all the ingredients, how they were mixed and took through the dough preparation. It was basically butter, self-rising flour and wheat flour, plus eggs. But the thing that made it brown was not exactly ginger, it was cinnamon. There was so much flour that Idlan started sneezing. Luckily, it was not into the mixing bowl - it might have tasted better then. The ingredients were mixed and it was passed around for everyone to stir, including Irfan. And stir he did.

Listening to the teacherShall I just eat it whole?... and the pounding begins ...... tong tang tong tang!And a bit of elbow greaseOnce that was done, the students were separated into their own little stations and given some pre-prepared dough and some flour for them to start flattening and banging. After the dough was flat, out came the shapes. Most of them made stars, snowman, and of course the gingerbread man shape. Irfan managed to squeezed out 10 pieces of biscuits from his little dough. Once those were ready, they were put onto baking trays, and were taken off into the over.

More squeezingIt was finally taking shapeInto the oven they went ......Due to the exceedingly cute photos, I had to split the entry into two parts …… to be continued …..