With the memory of our last escapade behind her, my daughter and I have ventured into the kitchen again. She’s been asking since Thursday if we can bake together; a request I couldn’t refuse. We opted for gingerbread men.
It was gorgeous today. The colloquial term is an Indian Summer, meaning that we had unseasonably warm temperatures so I took us all off to the play-park where we used to live.
It elicits mixed emotions but good ones on the whole. The village itself is bucolic perfection and the play-park is in keeping. It was full of young families who had a similar thought process to me.
On the way home we stopped off at the supermarket to pick up a few items for the bake. Then back to the corner shop for some that I’d forgotten. I really should make lists again.
Back home, the Kindle HD was fired up and ‘Gingerbread’ tapped into the search engine. Good old BBC Food came up first, so they got the honour.
My son was happy on a chair in the kitchen watching the proceedings, no doubt eagerly awaiting the end result.
Regulars (I have regulars!) will remember me saying that I needed to buy some extra bits in order to bake successfully a while back. Well I still need to buy them.
There was more than a little ‘At mum’s house we have that…’ which I duly ignored. Golden Syrup was subbed with honey and the imaginary scales that I was certain I had failed to materialise, so much was done by sight.
At this point, I realised that things weren’t going well but we pressed on…
I quickly learnt that flour doesn’t stick to a pint glass and a pint glass is a poor substitute for a rolling pin. No matter; onwards.
The cookie cutters became moulds, as this hateful mess refused to go anywhere I wanted in it’s entirety. The cubs were pretty happy though as they got the job of cleaning the utensils and mixing bowl.
In the oven they went.
Out the oven they came.
Yes. I even added some chocolate chunks for buttons and eyes, or a groin and shin judging by the previous photo. Now was the hard bit; sit and wait for 10 minutes before decorating…
Before we go any further, I realise that the cutters are cutters and not moulds but the viscosity of the mixture was such that I was on to a loser. Into the oven they went.
With the cubs waiting with baited breath, I made my move to seperate man from mould.
They crumbled and so did she. Cue tears.
15 minutes later I had managed to rouse a do-or-die spirit within her and back she came to decorate. Her brother and her sharing the stool and eating more than they decorated but hey; that’s the point isn’t it.
I really need to go shopping.
BSD
broke-single-dad 