18 Feet of Candy and 28 Pounds of Frosting
December 6, 2009
That’s about what it takes for 36 children to decorate 36 gingerbread houses in 90 minutes of high-speed, sugar-fueled fun, and it all happened yesterday at our annual children’s gingerbread house decorating party at our church.
For the past five years I’ve been organizing this little sugar-fueled holiday event for the kids at our church and every year I think I enjoy doing it more and more, primarily because I have the system down at this point and so everything runs smoothly….unlike the year when I over-estimated the amount of ingredients needed and ended up with our home pantry filled with ginormous bags of flour and gallons of molasses…or the year I made the icing so thin I was tempted to staple the roofs on.
No, at this point it all comes together as smooth as glass….
In August or September I purchase all the gingerbread cookie ingredients and spend several hours pre-measuring and bagging the ingredients into batches. The next morning using the stack of Pampered Chef Stoneware Gingerbread House molds I’ve accumulated over the years I start baking around 9:00 a.m. and finish with the final wipe-down of the kitchen 12 hours later with all the house components packed away in the freezer.
Through September and November I buy candy. The day after Halloween is the best time to get all the miniature candy bars and then as soon as the holiday-themed candy hits the shelves at Targets and Costco, I’m there. Last year I over-bought so much candy that it was almost enough for this year too which had stayed wrapped up airtight and cool in the back of our storage unit all year long. It held up so well that this year on the day after Christmas while the rest of you are scoring on half-price Christmas wrap I’m going to be loading my cart with leftover Christmas ribbon candy and green and red foil wrapped chocolates for Christmas 2010.
Getting back to the countdown, on Thursday I make and individually bag the royal icing and remove the gingerbread from the freezer to thaw. On Friday the houses are assembled at church and the church gathering hall is transformed into a candy construction zone.
Come Saturday morning the children arrive and the magic happens. Now, the best part of all this is that the parents and children think I go to all this effort for them and I’m going to let them go on believing that, but between you and me, I’m pretty sure I more fun than anyone!
Posted in Apron Adventures, Daily Life, Food, Our Church
