Christmas Baking

A few years ago, I discussed the fact that I don't bake.  Cooking...yes...do it most nights...love it!  Baking...no...don't do it...don't like it.  That all changed the day Noah received a Gingerbread Man at school and proceeded to lick, munch, and chew his way through most of it.  

What?!?  My son actually put a soft cookie in his mouth and enjoyed it?!?

Mr. Man has been working on biting foods for several months now and has made very slow progress.  He seems to prefer taking the smallest bites of crunchy cookies that will disintegrate in his mouth without the need to chew.  The fact that he took bites of the soft gingerbread cookie...well...it was AMAZING!

Kc found a recipe for soft gingerbread cookies this morning and I decided that I could get over my no baking rule for the sake of my son {I know...such a sacrifice from this Mama}.

Bubs had so much fun measuring all the ingredients.  

 

Why, yes, that is an Angry Birds hat that Mr. Man is wearing.  Some bakers wear aprons, but the real professionals wear Angry Birds hats.

Please don't tell Nana that I am not using Penzey's Spices.  When you don't bake all that often {ok...never} you don't fill your pantry with the best cinnamon.

 

We sifted all the dry ingredients and only made a small mess.

Mixing the dough together requires quite a bit of concentration.

How good a cookie tastes is in direct proportion to how messy you get while baking them.

After allowing the dough to rest and rehydrate for an hour {the longest hour in Bub's life} it was time to roll it out.

We started, of course, with the classic Gingerbread Man cookie cutter.

You have to push down really hard on the cookie cutter.

Come on, push down even harder.

Bubs is showing me how hard you have to push down...he's grunting super hard.

Oh, we get to do it again?

And again?

And again?

After we used the Gingerbread Man, it was time to mix things up a bit.  Miss Willow gave Noah some fantastic whale, shark, seahorse, and dolphin cookie cutters, and who says that gingerbread cookies have to be human. 

 Bubs loved the sea creature cookies.

After a few short minutes in the oven and a bit of time to cool, it was time to enjoy the fruits of our labor.

"I bite the head off," Noah told me as he attempted to put the entire thing in his mouth.  Bubs bit down, but was unable to break it off.

He moved on to the arms and tried to take a big bite.

Success!  Noah managed to take a bite and actually kept it in his mouth for a moment.  After attempting to chew this HUGE bite, Bubs wiped it off his tongue and went in for a much smaller bite. 

Mr. Man went back for several more small bites and even chewed and swallowed most of them. 

If Noah responds this well to homemade cookies, I just might have to change my no baking rule into an only baking with my son rule.