Handprints and Mice Creams

It can be tricky being a grandparent in a large family, especially at Christmastime (we celebrate our “family Christmas” on January 7), especially when you want to give the right gift, but are afraid you might duplicate someone else’s.

So, this year, for my two grandsons—ages nearly three and nearly four—I presented baking experiences.

On Friday, I will show the grandson currently living with me how to make handprint cookies (with premade dough and freshly washed hands—his and mine). Then he can have fun decorating and serving the cookies after dinner.

My twenty-year-old son Timothy turned a little green at the thought of eating cookies a preschooler literally made with his hands, so I showed a picture of cookie option #2.

“Would you rather we did footprints?” I asked.

The look on his face was irrelevant. Either way, I don’t think Timothy we’ll be eating cookies with us on Friday.

Yesterday, I sent a package to my out-of-state grandson. It contained a picture, a recipe, and a check (to buy ingredients) for “Mice Creams.”

Basically, he will place a scoop of ice cream into a mini graham cracker shell and decorate the ice cream so it looks like a mouse’s head: round cookies for ears, chocolate chips for eyes and nose, and licorice pieces for whiskers.

Neither recipe will be featured inside the Bryony cookbook, but I figure the boys will have so much fun baking that, once the cookbook is released, they’ll beg their mothers to try some of really kid-friendly recipes, like molasses candy or boiled pudding.