{"id":46014,"date":"2013-12-23T00:08:04","date_gmt":"2013-12-23T08:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=46014"},"modified":"2013-12-23T00:08:04","modified_gmt":"2013-12-23T08:08:04","slug":"icing-on-the-cake-merit-badge-expert-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/46014","title":{"rendered":"Icing on the Cake Merit Badge, Expert Level"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tThe adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our<\/span> Sisterhood Merit Badge program<\/a>, now with 5,602 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far\u20147,898 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Wondering who I am? I\u2019m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my<\/span> former life<\/a> \u2026\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

For this week\u2019s Farm Kitchen\/Icing on the Cake Expert Level Merit Badge<\/a>, I was inspired by my local gingerbread house auction and contest.<\/p>\n

Okay. So it was a little bit of a stretch \u2026 from cake to gingerbread house \u2026 but I knew my fellow farmgirls were behind me. Yeah, I wasn\u2019t making a butter cake from scratch, but all the decorating I was going to do was going to make up for it.<\/p>\n

And how.<\/p>\n

The great thing about gingerbread houses is how long they stay fresh, and how early you can start the decorating process. Example: I started my house two weeks before the contest and auction. I mean, it\u2019s not like anyone is going to eat it anyway, right? It\u2019s for gazing at in awe and admiration, not for snacking. We aren\u2019t Hansel and Gretel, people.<\/p>\n

Of course, should anyone want to snack upon my house, they\u2019d be met with delicious flavors, I assure you. Licorice whips, candy buttons, peppermints, gummy bears, powdered sugar, mini marshmallows, gumdrops, sugar cubes, lollipops, red hots, jelly beans \u2026 well, this list is somewhat endless. Being a farmgirl, I really tried to limit my junk food and went with plenty of locally made candy, dye-free alternatives, and healthy options, like pretzels and shredded wheat.<\/p>\n

I realized about three days in that gingerbread-house decorating is a lot like having a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. They become rather addicting. As in, I\u2019ll just finish this one stained glass window and then I\u2019ll use the bathroom<\/em>, or One more tree and then I\u2019ll eat breakfast<\/em>. If you don\u2019t have boundaries, girls, you\u2019re gonna end up with a slight bladder infection and expired, uneaten breakfast foods. Helpful hint from me to you: Know when to walk away from the golden glow of the frosting-tinted roofs and caramel-studded window panes.<\/p>\n

I was going to bed with not only visions of sugar plums dancing in my head, but also visions of jellied fruit slices, Skittles, shredded coconut, and cotton candy. Willie Wonka had taken over my dreams. I was getting toothaches and I hadn\u2019t even been pinching the inventory!<\/p>\n

I needed a break. Mr. Wonderful obligingly took away my gingerbread house for the night so I wouldn\u2019t be tempted to ice some more, or frost something. I printed out a list of emergency numbers for him in case something happened to my sweet baby, and I tried to go to bed early. I got up the next morning and treated myself to a nice breakfast and didn\u2019t even call to check in (though I wanted to).<\/p>\n

Seeing my beautiful house after a little bit of an absence was just what I had needed. With renewed vigor, I placed the very last silver non-pareil atop the gingerbread roof, and together, Mr. Wonderful and I loaded it up into the car.<\/p>\n

He drove like a geriatric snail by my request, and we made it to the auction and contest just in time.<\/p>\n

Did I win? Did anyone buy my sweet baby?<\/p>\n

Well, Second Runner Up isn\u2019t too bad, and let\u2019s just say Mr. Wonderful came with spending money.<\/p>\n

Munch munch.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 5,602 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far\u20147,898 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ Wondering … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gladsome_sisters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}