Gingerbread pancakes and beeswax lipbalm

I found this lip balm recipe and I was so excited to try it with these kids, ages 2-3. Last year when I did this gift making class we made beeswax lip balm but it involved standing at the stove with a double boiler and the kids couldn't be super involved, because of the heat and the hot wax etc. I had to do the melting and the pouring, and then even after all that, the mixture separated after pouring and was basically hard wax with a puddle of nice-smelling oil on top... not really what I was going for. This recipe is awesome and totally interactive. You put the ingredients in a ziplock bag and then the kids can massage them around while submerging them in hot water... they all melt together and then you snip a little hole in the tip of the bag and squirt it into your container. Voila! And it was completely soft and delicious, balm-y for the lips. The only thing is you may have to grate your beeswax. If you bought your beeswax in that pellet form, I'm not sure if the water would be hot enough to melt it all the way down, so your best bet would probably be to buy a block of it and grate it. Here's the recipe:
1 teaspoon grated beeswax
2 teaspoons solid vegetable shortening (I actually substituted coconut oil and it worked great)
1 teaspoon pure petroleum jelly (In further experiments I think I will try to substitute this out as well)
1 drop candy flavoring (we used peppermint essential oil, seemed to work fine)
Place ingredients into new zipper-style plastic bag and close shut. Immerse bag into bowl of warm water. Squeeze the bag with your fingers to mix together the contents until the mixture liquifies. Cut bottom corner of bag and squeeze contents into a small sanitized (boiled)container. Let set.

We also made gingerbread pancakes... to give this as a gift you can just mix all the dry ingredients together and include the directions to complete the recipe on the container. Makes an awesome Christmas/Hanukah/Chrismukkah/Kwanzaa breakfast, I must say!


GINGERBREAD PANCAKES
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 egg
1 1/4 cups milk
1/4 cup molasses
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
lingonberry preserves (optional)
Directions
1In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, soda, salt, ginger and cinnamon. Set aside.
2In large bowl, beat together egg and milk.
3Stir in molasses, then oil.
4Add flour mixture and stir just until combined.
5Pour a quarter cup of batter per pancake onto griddle.
6Cook on first side until puffed, full of bubbles and dry looking around edges.
7Turn and cook until second side is browned.