Gingerbread Project 2023: Canadian Edition

 

The aquarium was the littlest lady’s idea.

“We could even put gelatin sheets on the sides to make it look like glass,” her mom suggested.

And so Gingerbread Project 2023 was decided in early October.

On a trip to Bellingham, I loaded up on candy at Fred Meyer’s and Trader Joe’s. American candy always seems so much more fun and exotic. Butter and cinnamon at Costco. American butter is so much cheaper and comes in cool sticks.

But on the day of the big bake, calamity struck. Ugh. Mouse poop on the window ledge.  

These are not what real mice look like.

 

Nor this. Don't get fooled by how they're represented in storybooks.

Horror doesn’t begin to describe how I felt. My life became a non-stop cycle of vacuuming, steam-cleaning and bleaching my floors and counters like a mad Lady MacBeth. Multiple times a day – even when there was no evidence of recent visits. Traps were purchased and emptied daily. I considered getting a cat.

The g-bread project is a multi-day affair. Obviously I couldn’t bake the pieces and leave them lying around for the mice, so I had to find containers big enough to hold the pieces until I was ready to assemble. I used casseroles with lids, Tupperware and a cooler.  The final solution was to drive the completed project to Krista’s who has two cats and no mice.

On the day of assembly I was relieved, but still somewhat skeptical, to see we were mostly rodent-free. I had only found three small pellets that morning. Still lurking, but the traps were working.

The littlest lady iced and decorated while I kept the icing coming and one eye out for any uninvited taste-testers. She picked the colours and took delight in sprinkling little flakes of gold once I assured her they were edible.

For reasons I can't fathom, I have a lifetime supply of candy eyeballs. Little Miss put some of them to good use and we have decided to call our creation “Big Eyes Aquarium.”

In the end, the gelatin sheets were rejected by the decorator-in-chief. So now I have to google what to do with all those gelatin sheets.

When we were done, the littlest lady declared the finished aquarium beautiful and said “If it weren’t made of gingerbread I’d take it home to play with.”

Indeed.

 In the end the structure was too fragile to transport and has stayed chez moi. Even though I believe the mice are gone, I have had some worrisome dreams where Gus and Jaq sneak in for a late night snack.

But I think I’ve got that covered now. 

Here's how we did it. . .

I always start with a construction paper mock up. Should have paid more attention to the little dipsy-doodle on the top piece. The g-bread version is starting to sag too. Oops.

 

Next step is laying out all the pieces . . . and testing all the candy.

 

Propping up pieces with cans during assembly is a tradition

 

What a mess. What a good time.

 

The top is a bit saggy so minimal decorations went there.

Oyster with real pearl (An innovation from the the other little lady last year). Jellyfish with Wrigley's gum tentacles. And fish darting in and out of the seaweed.

A lot of attention to detail on the sides.

And more fun decorating the other side. I've called dibs on the peppermint stick.