A gingerbread day!

I think almost everyone grew up knowing the classic story of the gingerbread man.

It’s a great story to play –very simple and catchy story with repetitive rhymes that are easy for little ones to remember.

“Run, run as fast as you can,
You can’t catch me,
I’m the gingerbread man!”

So we made a gingerbread man puppet. And we re-enacted the story together.

It was fun coming up with improvisations using different animals and characters… because let’s face it, EVERYONE wants to eat the gingerbread man.

After all that imaginary eating of the gingerbread man, we started to get pretty hungry. So we made lots more little gingerbread men. REAL ones this time.

And then comes the best part… Chomping them up!

Nathan’s gingerbread man disappeared very quickly. So I asked him what happened to it…

“It’s sleeping”, he said.

“Sleeping? Where?”, I asked.

“In my tummy!”, he grinned.

I quite liked the gingerbread men recipe I used. Very easy, with just a handful of ingredients. Sharing the recipe here in case some of you feel a craving coming on…

Quick and Easy Gingerbread Men
(Makes approx 2 dozen men)

Ingredients
2 cups plain flour
1/2 tspn baking soda
1 tbsp ground ginger
1 cup brown sugar
150g butter
1 egg, beaten

Method
Preheat oven to 180°C. Sift flour, baking soda and ginger together. Add in brown sugar.
Add butter and rub with fingertips or pulse in food processor until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Add egg and mix together to form a soft dough. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Roll out dough on lightly floured surface and cut out gingerbread shapes with cookie cutters.
Place gingerbread men on a lined tray and bake for 8-10 minutes until golden brown.
Allow gingerbread to cool completely before decorating. I made a simple icing by mixing 1/2 cup of icing sugar with 1 1/2 tspn water.

 

Have you ever played out a story book with your kids? What are some of your favourite ones to play?

 

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