Decorating Gingerbread

Every year I look at the various gingerbread kits available in the stores and think 'That is a cute project but it is just way too much sugar'.  Once, probably a dozen years ago, I did buy a gingerbread house decorating kit for the school-age children to work on during the afternoons of Christmas break when there was no school and the little ones were sleeping.  Combining the little ones with that much sugar was something I was not prepared to do.

This year we did make whole wheat sugar cookies;

Sorry, I didn't manage to take any other pictures of the cookies - too busy assisting toddlers with dough stuck in cookie cutters.  They were very good cookies though - here is the recipe: 

Whole Wheat Sugar Cookies
 
Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 large egg
• 1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Directions

1. Mix sugar and butter in large bowl until fluffy.
2. Add milk, vanilla and egg; mix well.
3. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg; mix well.
4. Cover and chill for 30 minutes.
5. Heat oven to 375°.
6. Mix the 2 Tbsp sugar with the cinnamon.
7. Shape dough into 1-inch balls.
8. Place 2-inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.
9. Bake for 7-10 minutes, or until light brown.

We didn't decorate the sugar cookies but I still liked the idea of a decorating project so I thought about what would be a healthier option for gingerbread decoration.

I've never made gingerbread dough before and the store bought kind is so prevalent that it just seemed to be a better choice for the decorating base - besides, it was the decorating that I planned to be the main project.  As for my concerns about the excess sugar - I chose dried fruits, pretzels, and flaked coconut for decorations and some Wow Butter for glue.

We started with each child working independently on their own gingerbread man.  We began after morning snack - I hoped that having just finished eating snack they would be less inclined to nibble on decorations.

 

Of course many decorations were still eaten - in some cases devoured leaving few to use for decorating;

Even the Wow Butter got consumed by the handful - I'm really glad it wasn't candy and icing.  Phase one complete;

Phase two was more of a group project with many smaller steps over several days.  Five little houses were decorated and grouped to create a centerpiece for our table.  Often there were only one or two children working on the decorations and sometimes only for a minute or two.  It took nearly three weeks to complete and there was very little 'snacking' - maybe because this belonged to the whole group or maybe because the decorations were becoming less appealing over time.

Finished;