Gingerbread people & hearts @ WBCL

What a fun and smelly ( in a nice way) program this was. I used homemade cinnamon clay dough * and baked 2 dozen gingerbread girls & boys and 2 dozen hearts the night before. I got the dough a little wet so they spent the night in the dehydrator to be nice and dry for class. We used pony beads, fabric and glitter glue to personalize each one before threading a ribbon through for hanging. The library even supplied small boxes from our recycling program to carry them home in.

*recipe for cinnamon clay dough
4 c flour 1 c salt
1 c water 1/2 c cinnamon
2T nutmeg 2 T ground gloves
Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl with a spoon. Add water then mix and kneed until clay-like consistancey is reached. Add more flour if too wet. Roll out between parchment paper or wax paper to about 1/4"-3/8"
thickness and cut using cookie cutters. Bake at 300 degrees for 30-45 minutes. You can bake them at a lower temp for a lot longer if your oven will do this--mine will not. I used my dehydrator at 145 degrees overnight to finish drying them.