Someone's in the Kitchen

Baking cookies with children is always a creative event. Sierra has really wanted to help this year. I let her use the cookie cutters, help with brushing on the egg and with sprinkles.

Some day someone smarter than me will invent a nonpareil shaker that portions out the amount of sprinkles to be poured on the cookies. Not that I don't enjoy a mound of sprinkles, but sometimes I like to taste the cookie too.

'Tis the season to begin our edible models. We are working our way through the Middle Ages this year, so I thought it would be nice to start with a Viking ship. Technically, we studied the Vikings two months ago, but things have been so busy this was their first opportunity to work on it.

Marina worked on the ship with Sierra while Chase made the figurehead and rudder. The only crisis came when they realized that Chase's pieces were a bit large in proportion to the ship. You think they would have noticed since Chase kept going over to Marina to show her his progress. I finally got them to compromise and Marina made the ship a little bigger to support her brother's carved dragon head while he whittled away at his chocolate rudder.

The ship itself is Chocolate Pirouette cookies held together with chocolate. I pushed the crumbs up against the ship to try to give the appearance of waves. The sail is a Fruit Roll-Up. Do they still sell plain old fruit roll ups without pictures printed on them? I'm not complaining, I just wasn't sure if a Batman themed roll-up would ruin the effect.

Chase also carved a lifeboat. You can't be too careful. The masthead, rudder and lifeboat courtesy of Hershey's Special Dark miniatures.