Tag: Festive

December 18, 2015

O little town of gingerbread

So this is later than the usual Monday night. But I hope you’ll forgive me when you see the contents, and when you remember it’s December and that I now have a full-time job.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, I have been fortunate enough to join a team full of kind and kooky misfits, who have made the last three months super fun.

This year, when considering my yearly gingerbread offering I deliberated over how I might transport one into work to share the joy. But when you make gingerbread houses like this and this and get the central line tube to work, even the thought of attempting that makes you sweat.

The obvious answer? Make little ones for everyone. Sure. That’s not mental at all.

You will need:

1lb 10.5 oz/750g/5 cups plain flour

5oz/140g/1 cup soft brown sugar

7oz/200g/1 cup unsalted butter

2 eggs

5 tbsp treacle

8 tbsp golden syrup

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

2 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

A box of royal icing (read notes below)

The template

ALL THE SWEETS (including boiled sweets for the windows)

LED tea lights if you want it to look like there’s a fire on inside

Some notes:

The quantities above make 4 little houses. Yes, I made 3 batches of mixture. It will make about one medium to large house, both the links in the blurb above required a batch and a quarter or so.
For the roofs I use either chocolate buttons, fingers or matchmakers. The roof on house one is the right size for chocolate finger biscuits, matchmakers are great because they are long, but they are narrow so you need quite a few. Roughly it works out like this per roof for these templates: one box of matchmakers, two boxes of fingers, and two bags of buttons (based on Sainsbury’s own 3 for £1 bags)
You need a lot of royal icing, get a few boxes, I used 3 for 12 houses.
For the bases I use a thick cardboard box covered in tinfoil. You could buy a cake board, but then you have to work out if your house will fit, or make it to fit the board. I prefer to make the base to fit the house, less restrictive that way.
For a bit of advice on template making for bigger houses click here
You are unlikely to complete all this in one day, as you need to let the dough cool before rolling it out, just a little FYI.

Step one

In a saucepan melt together the butter, treacle, sugar and golden syrup. Try not to let it get too hot.

Step two

Mix together the spices, salt and flour together and make a well in the middle. Add the eggs and use a hand whisk to break them up. Start making small circles to incorporate the flour.

Step three

Pour the treacle mix into the well and continue mixing with the whisk for as long as you can until it becomes too hard to stir. Swap the whisk for a wooden spoon until fully combined.

Allow to cool. Put it outside if it’s cold or in the fridge to speed up the process. It will be sticky but don’t add more flour.

Step four

Bash up hard boiled sweets with a rolling pin in a sandwich bag, or use this life changing gadget, the mini food processor, to mush them instead.

Step five

Once the dough has cooled it’s time to roll out the houses. Big, flat baking trays are best for this.

Flour a surface and roll out the dough in batches. You will probably need to use a knife and a metal spoon to extract the mix from the bowl. Don’t fight it, it’s a winning formula structure-wise.

Roll a piece of dough to the same size as your tray for maximum efficiency re:oven space.

Step six

Use the rolling pin to lift the gingerbread onto a piece of gingerbread the size of your tray. It is essential to do this before cutting; it stops you stretching individual pieces out of shape when you move them.

Use the templates and a knife to cut the panels out. Contrary to the image above it’s best to do batches of the same shape – that way the bake is the right amount of time for that sized piece. The most obvious way to explain that little ramble is that the chimney pieces will cook a lot quicker than the side panel for example.

Step seven

Transfer the gingerbread onto the tray and cut out window shapes. This year I invested in a little cutter set of different shapes and sizes. It was amazing. Total gingerbread game changer.

Fill the gaps with the sweet crumbs. This is why you need baking paper. Otherwise the sweets melt and glue your house to the tray.

Bake on 180C/gas mark 4/350F for 10-15 minutes. Over-cooked is preferable as they need to be able to stand up, and they will get softer as they sit out.

Step eight

Time to assemble. Mix together the royal icing making sure it’s really thick, it will stick better and dry quicker if it’s opaque white and not that sticky to touch.

If you’re making a big house, have a spare pair of hands at the ready and/or a lot of glasses and bottles to prop things against.

These little ones are actually really easy to put together in comparison.

Start with one side flat on the table. Pipe two even strips along each edge. Stick the two matching sides to this piece, propping them up with a glass so you have your hands free.

Step nine

Pipe along the top edges and stick the final side piece on the top.

Step ten

Flip the house upright. If you’re making a big house put it straight on the base at this stage and pipe on the inside corners to re-inforce the house. Less important with these little guys. They are actually great ‘starter houses’. Yes I do a bit hate myself that I say that, and many of my other tips with ZERO irony.

Pipe along the back sloped edges and the back. Stick down a roof panel. The straighter edge should be at the top, as you are more likely to cover irregularities at the bottom with a bit of overhang.

Pipe the top of the roof, the sides and edge. Stick the other roof panel down.

Step eleven

Make the chimney in the same way, and attach it to the roof.

Step twelve

Pipe some snow in the windows while the piping bag still has quite a thick opening.

Step thirteen

Start tiling! Make sure the first layer overhangs the bottom of the roof, and build up subsequent layers by overlapping them as shown.

Step fourteen

Neaten up the edges with chocolate fingers or matchmakers and a chocolate button or two. A row of dolly mixtures along the top, or mini marshmallows looks cute too.

Step fifteen

Continue to decorate the sides and the back. I find a much narrower nozzle on the piping bag is good for this. I like putting these little dots around things.

This year I used a lot of white chocolate buttons, I don’t have much choice in the local small supermarkets nearby. Silver balls, mini stars, chocolate drops and other round sweets are amongst my favourites for the decorations.

Step sixteen

Don’t forget the little door! I wouldn’t attach it at this stage if you are doing a big house, because you need to squeeze the tea lights through it. The little ones can just be placed over the top of them as they don’t need to be attached to a base at this stage.

Step seventeen

Keep making them.

Here’s a snap of me (with the reddest face, thanks blushing reflex) that was insisted upon, and all but one of us (come back Saskia!) in the obligatory family photo.

How did I get them into work? A special train, a suitcase and some blankets.

November 23, 2015

Santa Claus is coming to town

Two years of fabrefaction.co.uk friends. Yup. THAT HAPPENED. Thank you for the support and the loving, please keep sharing, commenting and messaging me; I love hearing from you and seeing what you’ve made.

In keeping with my first post ever, and the one year anniversary post of this little blog, here’s another lovely advent calendar for you to make.

“Oh but advent starts next week, I don’t have time!” Yes, yes you do. I made this in a day. Less than really when you consider I went out for breakfast and dinner. You could even take the easy way out and glue instead of sew.

This particular calendar is a labour of love for my very hardworking and wonderful sister. Poor duck got jealous of mine once, and this year I thought it was about time she had something a little more permanent so she never forgets again. Thanks for your love and support sib.

You will need

A dowel rod (40cm) (or a wire coat hanger)

Festive looking string or ribbon

Felt (I bought two packs of 5 felt squares from John Lewis, you’d probably need 6 or so A4 sheets)

24-48 chocolates (I used mini Lindor truffles (there are 22 in a bag) and some woodland friends from Waitrose)

Something a bit more special for Christmas eve

24 miniature pegs (I got these from Tiger)

Buttons etc to decorate

FIMO or air dry clay

A marker pen or ink and mini number stamps

This template for the stockings

Step one

Depending on the length of your dowel you might need to cut it down. Mark the cut point at 40cm.

Step two

Cut the end of the dowel off. Those of you into wood work (of which I am sure there are plenty) don’t judge me for my saw, I’m relatively confident after using it that it wasn’t the right choice.

Step three

measure a length of twine/string/ribbon about twice the length of the wood and double knot tie it onto either end. You might want to add a little glue to secure it. Make sure to turn it so the knot is at the back.

Step four

Hold the centre point of the twine and allow the rod to hang off the side of the table. Make sure it’s level and tie a knot in the middle so that you have a loop to use for hanging.

Step five

Using the template cut out 23 mini stockings (2 pieces of felt for each). I cut through two layers at a time, and squeezed 8 cut outs from each square of felt. If you bought A4 sheets I imagine you’ll get 10-12.

Step six

Keep cutting.

Step seven

Sew the stockings together using an overlocking or zig zag stitch. I edged the white bits separately before attaching them and left the heel hanging over the edge.

If you are making this for next Christmas, feel free to hand sew. I cover how to blanket stitch here. If you want this ready in time for this advent I recommend borrowing a sewing machine or using glue.

Step eight

Cut the excess off the heel of the stocking and any loose threads.

Step eight and a half

(Totally missed this step on the original post)

Secure the heel with a little dab of glue, but make sure it doesn’t soak through and stick the stocking together.

Step nine

I decided not to sew heels on all of them as I wanted a bit of variation. So I used some of the embellishments from last year’s advent calendar to decorate. Glue is acceptable here I reckon, otherwise you really need to sew them on before sewing them together.

Repeat until you have 23 little stockings and one big one.

Step ten

Fill your little stockings as you go, they look very cute as they stack up.

Step eleven

After a few learning lessons from last week, I made the number markers with air dry clay. I found it easier to work with than FIMO. It also worked really well to ink the stamps before pressing them into the shapes.

This is entirely optional, you could write the numbers on the pegs, stamp them, make circles of card instead etc etc.

Step twelve

Once the shapes have dried out (no cooking required with this clay), stick them to the pegs with enough space at the top to open and shut the peg without squashing them.

Step thirteen

Cut 6 lengths of ribbon. I decided to taper mine at different lengths, as you can see in the final photos. To shape the ends nicely, fold the ribbon in half and cut diagonally on the fold to create a v-shaped cut.

Step fourteen

Tie the ribbons onto the rod and peg the stockings on.

Happy Christmas FiFi xx

November 10, 2015

Food innovation at its finest

Apologies for the day late post friends. I had a miniature pie melt down at the weekend (#myblogginglife) and as a result didn’t fancy posting yesterday. Instead I took an evening of sitting on the kitchen counters with the housemates eating pumpkin pie.

Speaking of the housemates. A while ago one of mine professed herself to be a food innovator. Bold claim? Yes. I thought so. When I asked for proof of this theory, she was ready with it. “Well,” she said calmly, and with an air of smugness, “I’ve had an excellent idea for mince pie truffles”. Lover of mince pies I am. Did I think this idea was a good one, worthy of the self proclaimed food innovator title? No, reader, I did not.

About a week of scorning later (I cannot put words together to explain how disgusting I thought the idea was and how aggressively I communicated that to her) she returned home with a box of mince pies to prove her idea, totally unfazed, a quality all struggling food innovators must no doubt possess. I’m sure Heston could empathise.

Anyway. Turns out, I like mince pie truffles. You’ll have to trust me on this one. Best eaten from the fridge, sound and look entirely unappetising, ladies and gentlemen, I bring you the recipe for the humble (but great) mince pie truffle.

This post is dedicated to one Ms Afua Addai-Diawuo, food innovator.

You will need

6 mince pies

300g/10.5 oz dark chocolate

Some sprinkles if you have them

Step one

Using a food processor blitz the mince pies until they are a dough like consistency. It will be very sticky so you will probably need to put the mixture into the freezer for about 30mins to an hour.

Step two

Roll the dough into evenly sized balls.

Put them back into the freezer for a while longer, until solidified.

Step three

Melt the dark chocolate and dip the truffle centres to coat them and leave them on some cellophane or greaseproof paper to dry.

If you want to see how to dip them, I cover it a little more thoroughly in this post from two weeks ago.

And there we go, early festive treats in three easy steps.

December 22, 2014

The final sprint

Some years (every year) I have grand plans for home made gifts and decorations at Christmas. Rarely does this materialise in the lovely relaxed and whimsical way it looks in my head. Generally I end up covered in the contents of my baking cupboard feeling totally harassed by the number of hampers I’ve decided to make.

If you’re anything like me, or if you’re completely handmade/craft-phobic in the first place, this one is for you. Three super quick festive crafts to brighten up the house and fill up stockings at the last minute. You don’t need an ounce of artistic/baking ability for any of these. So no excuses.

#1: Cute Christmas bunting

You will need

String (I got this two colour spool from Tiger for £1)

Christmassy washi-tape

Step one

Cut a random length of tape and place the string in the middle. If you really want to punish yourself you can try and make them all the same length, but I really like them random and it’s much easier that way too.

For this step I cut loads and stuck them on the edge of the table so I had them ready and did them in batches so I wasn’t constantly cutting one then sticking it etc etc.

Step two

Fold over the wash tape and stick together. Again, I found it easier to do this step in bulk and then snip them in one go (see below).

Step three

Cut an upside-down ‘v’ shape into the end.

Step four

Hang them. 

#2: Twig decoration

You will need

Some twigs foraged from the nearest tree

White or cream spray paint

Fairy lights or decorations

Jug/vase/plant pot

Step one

Spray twigs.

Step two

Place in holder.

Step three

Decorate.

Just in case you want the tutorial, here’s how to make the candle holders in the photo.

#3: Hot chocolate stirrers

I saw one of these at the shops today, it was £3! These make a great little stocking filler, present topper-upper or gifts for the neighbours. Just swirl into hot milk for a luxury hot chocolate.

You will need

400g/ 14oz Milk chocolate

50g/ 1.5oz White chocolate

Condiment cups (if the closest McDonalds doesn’t have these you can buy them online, or use mini-muffin cases)

Mini mini marshmallows (these tiny fellows are from Waitrose)

Fudge pieces

Cake pop sticks

Edible glitter (optional)

(Makes 10-12. You need roughly 35g chocolate per cup so adjust the above to suit the number of hot chocolates you want to make).

For wrapping

Cellophane roll (available online or from craft shops)

Chrismassy ribbon or string

Step one

Chop the fudge into little chunks so that they’re roughly in proportion with the marshmallows.

Step two

Melt the chocolate slowly in the microwave and put into piping bags. You can temper it if you want, but given that you won’t see much of it, it might not be worthwhile. I go into a bit more detail as to how to temper chocolate here.

Step three

Fill cup to near the brim with milk chocolate. Add a little white and swirl in with a cocktail stick.

Place stick in and surround with fudge and marshmallows.

Leave to set.

Step four

Dust on a little glitter.

Step five

Wrap up. Cut a square of cellophane wrap and place cup in the centre, bring corners up to the middle and secure. I used a loom band to do this, you could use a small elastic band or go straight in with the ribbon/string.

Trim off the corners and ‘foof’.

Go on. There must be one spare you can treat yourself to?

March 31, 2014

Chick-chick-chick-chick-chicken

Last Monday night I found myself in Sainsbury’s lending a hand with the food shopping. Whilst queuing behind five of the most ridiculous locals in the bakery line, I happened to spot a something in the display case. Now, I don’t know whether I was more amused or horrified to see these little things. There was no way to describe them, so I bought some to show you. See below.

Now, I wouldn’t blame you for wondering what on earth they are. That, my dear friends is one of the ways Sainsbury’s is ringing in the Easter season this year. They’re chicks! I know right? Wow.

So in my slightly obsessive way I hit the chocolate aisle with plans to improve on Sainsbury’s rather bizarre little contribution to Spring.

You will need

A half batch of the fudge from last week’s post. See step one for more info.

(You may prefer to use a favourite truffle or cake pop recipe instead, I just really like fudge)

300g White chocolate

White chocolate buttons

200-300g Candy coating

(optional – substitute with more white chocolate if you prefer/don’t want to buy)

A tub of chocolate beans

(mine were from Dr Oetker)

A couple of squares of dark chocolate

Step one

Make up the fudge as seen in last week’s post. You don’t want to heat it to quite the same temperature though, or you won’t be able to roll it. Go with around 112 degrees C. The white stuff you can see on the board is icing sugar – the fudge was a touch sticky.

Apologies both for skipping the ‘making of’ in this post, and for using the same recipe twice in two weeks. This is just a suggestion, you can use any kind of filling as long as you can roll it into balls.

Step two

Cut buttons into halves for the little wings, and sort your beans out so you’ve just got the yellow and orange ones for their little beaks.

Step three

Now, this stage was all a bit too much to try and document all on my own, even with the help of self timer, so excuse the jump in photos.

You want to melt the candy coating and white chocolate in the microwave in heat-proof bowls (do one colour in full first then the other).

After my first and bad experience with candy coating I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of take two, but I really wanted yellow chicks and had plenty left over. So I did a little google, only to discover that Wilton’s Candy Coating (the one I have) is pretty much universally hated by all home bakers. Wish I’d known before I forked out £3…still, never mind.

The forum mums and bloggers informed me that this cement mix can be thinned out with some melted shortening (Trex is the best UK substitute), or oil. I didn’t want a whole tub of Trex with no other plans for it on the horizon, so I just used veg oil. It worked fairly well, and at least made the candy dipp-able. I will probably try to source an alternative next time though.

Anyway, you should check out my dipping technique, documented in this post if you’re not sure where to start. You need to dip your fudge, place on greaseproof paper, and straight away stick on the little beak and wings. Feel free to experiment with different positions for the wings and beak so that all your tiny chickens are unique.

Leave to dry.

NB: I also added little swirls and lines for hair with a cocktail stick to give my chicks a bit of extra character, not that they needed any…they’re a little bit bumpy and odd as it is but it all adds to the charm eh?!

Step four

Use a small sharp knife to trim off any chocolate that has pooled to form a base on the greaseproof around the bottom of your chicks. I wish I’d been a little more careful about this, so take your time. If you do it while the chocolate is still a little soft you will get a cleaner cut.

Step five

Melt a couple of squares of dark chocolate and use a cocktail stick to dot on eyes. I made a number of mine sleep with little semi circles and the wonkiest looking one was given glasses…mainly for my sister’s benefit as I knew she would find him endearing.

Step six

Put them on a plate and serve them up to your Easter guests!

They are a bit too cute to eat though. Even if they aren’t quite the polished product I had in mind when I turned my nose up at the Sainsbury’s ones, I hope they bring a little smile to your face.

Happy making!

December 28, 2013

Let’s party like it’s 2014

I don’t know about you but I’m always taken by surprise when New Year rolls around, I’m so distracted by Christmas it’s a bit ‘oh! there you are’ on NYE.

If your experience is anything like mine you’ll need a make which is easy on the budget and low hassle. I present to you cut out party hats.

You will need:

A4 coloured card/paper (one sheet per hat)

Glue/Double sided tape

Scissors

Elastic/String/Wool

Step one

Cut a corner off your sheet, at a 45 degree angle. Don’t worry if you don’t have a protractor – just fold a scrap piece of paper to a point on one of the corners and use as a guide.

Step two

Make the first fold by matching your cut edge to the top edge of the paper. Essentially making a point from that wide angle you just created.

Step three

Fold at least twice more. My paper was quite thick so this is as far as mine would go without forcing it, but feel free to keep folding.

Step four

Find the shortest edge going across your hat, and cut the excess off at this point.

Step five

Unfold to check your curve is ok, if not neaten any points with scissors.

Step six

Fold back up and make your cuts. This is generally easier with paper but then if you over cut you weaken your hat so keep a good balance!

Make sure you keep a line at the bottom in tact so you can add your string and wear your hat.

Step seven:

Unfold and survey your masterpiece.

Iron this flat or leave under a heavy box/book for a few hours. The thinner your paper/card the more of your creases you will get out, but don’t worry too much, you won’t really notice on the finished item.

Step eight

Retrieve that discarded corner from earlier, and cut a strip from the longest edge.

Cover in glue or double sided tape and assemble your hat. I then cut a second strip and stuck inside to strengthen the hold.

Step nine

Bit of a Blue Peter moment here…place bit of blu tac/banana under your hat edge and use something sharp to make a hole. Repeat on opposite side.

Now, I had some elastic lying around. If you do too, measure it under your chin and round the sides of your head, but make sure to cut it slightly shorter than this distance so that there’s some pull to keep it in place. Push through the hole and tie a knot on the inside.

If you don’t have elastic do not despair; string or thin wool will work too, you can just do two long strips and tie in a bow under your chin.

Step ten

Put on head, have great time.

December 23, 2013

Mrs Claus’ cocoa

It feels wonderful to be tucked up under a blanket when the wind is wailing and the rain is smashing against the window. But if you don’t have one of these in your hands, you’re missing a trick. Calorie counters, you might as well close your browser window…you are not welcome here.

Prepare your stomachs, this is for people who are serious about chocolate. A perfect treat for little elves to take a break from all the Christmas busy.

Things you need:

(Makes two large or three small cups)

300ml Double cream

350ml Full fat milk (2%)

70g Dark chocolate

50g Milk chocolate

Peppermint extract

Candy cane/mini marshmallows/sprinkles to decorate

Step one:

Chop chocolate finely. I find a bread knife works really well for this, as the serrated edge somehow stops chunks flying all over the place. Put aside in heatproof bowl.

Feel free to adjust the chocolate quantities to your taste. I am not only a chocolate addict but a huge sweet tooth, so I very much orientated the recipe to junkie level.

Step two and a bit:

Put 200ml of the cream, all of the milk, and the peppermint extract in a pan on the lowest heat. About 1/2 a teaspoon of peppermint extract will suffice, anyone particularly keen on mint can also whip some into the topping.

Speaking of topping, a little tip…my pot of cream was 300ml and also had a handy measuring gauge on the side. So I split 200ml into the pan, 100ml in a bowl and then used the pot to measure out the milk, simples. I got mine from Sainsbo’s, not sure if the other supermarkets do the same, but they should. Even if you don’t have this marker, just do it by sight, one third to two thirds. Use same principle for measuring the chocolate, this should be easy, no scales/measuring jugs allowed.

While the cream and milk are slowly heating, use a whisk (preferably electric – don’t burn and unnecessary calories now) to whip the remaining 100ml of cream until it thickens to a ‘dollop-on-top-of-a-hot-chocolate’ consistency.

Now, I didn’t get a photo of this but you need to heat the mixture until little bubbles cover the surface, and the steam sort of dances over it. You’ll know when you get there – I’m not mental. Make sure you stir regularly and try not to let it boil or burn. Be patient, it will pay off.

Step three:

Pour the hot crilk (cream+milk=crilk) onto the chopped chocolate. Stir quickly with hand whisk until all the chocolate is melted. Ladle into mugs.

The mixture should be hot enough, but if you have asbestos mouth, then you might want to pop in the microwave for 20 seconds, or preheat the mugs with boiling water first.

Step four:

It already looks (and tastes) super yummy at this stage, and personally I’m not usually one for whipped cream on my hot chocolate. BUT IT’S CHRISTMAS.

Divide the cream you whipped earlier onto your cocoa, and cover with mini marshmallows and sprinkles (mine were another Sainsbury’s buy), stick in a candy cane stirrer and prepare to enjoy.

(you’re welcome)

December 19, 2013

Gingerbread architecture: The final frontier

At last, time to decorate.

This is by far the best bit, and your opportunity to hide any blemishes. For me, that was a whacking great crack down the front, the odd broken window pane and some darker than attractive edges. So fill your piping bags, stick on a Christmas film, or phone a good friend using hands-free and enjoy!

There are no steps in this post, just some ideas to get you going.

Things you need:

Royal icing of course (you can use regular but I find royal dries quicker and looks whiter)

Piping bags

Sweets Sweets Sweets

A little tip

When you’re buying your sweets you should have a think about roughly what will go where, specifically in terms of the roof. Make sure you overestimate how much you think you will need, it’s always surprising how quickly everything disappears. Particularly if you adopt a ‘one for the house, one for me’ approach, which is the correct way to do this in case you were wondering.

I chose button tiles for my roof. The key is to make sure there is some overhang on your first layer, and then just keep going in lines, overlapping slightly, until you hit the top. Chocolate fingers or matchmakers work for a sort of log cabin look, or I’ve seen shredded wheat for a thatched roof (not sure who would want to eat that though!).

Once I had finished I dusted my roof with some icing sugar snow for a wintery look.

The last couple of years I’ve done normal houses, but I’ve decided to start theming them more now I’ve got the hang of it a little bit. So this year’s effort is designed to be an old fashioned sweet shop (it seemed apt given the sugar coma it put me in). Obviously it needed an awning or two! I just coloured some of my icing red and alternated between the two colours until I reached the end. If you want straight lines then the trick is to hover away from the biscuit a bit so you have more control over the direction.

What cosy winter hideaway is complete without some snow caught in the window panes? The idea here is to fill one of the corners a little more than the other, which I realised after piping the window in the centre…

And now ladies and gents…the finished article! Complete with flickering fire light (an LED tea light candle pushed through the doorway)

As you can see I bought mainly different coloured and sized circles: chocolate drops, silver balls, smarties and chocolate buttons. I like little dots of icing to decorate with too, but you need to decide what works best for you, it should be fun! I don’t really pre-plan, but buying lots of similar shaped things helps I think.

Oh wait!

That’s not all… remember this little guy?

Well I decorated him too. The base he was sitting on is actually the lid of a gift box, I won’t show you what’s inside though, incase the recipient is reading this (there needs to be some element of surprise!) This adds a lovely personal touch to any present, or can just be the present in itself!

The front and back are A6 size (A4 paper folded into quarters) and then measure everything else out based on that. You can get at least four of these guys out of one batch of mixture.

Before you go…just one more little idea…

A homemade festive gift without the fuss for someone you like, but not an ‘I made you a gingerbread house’ level of like.

To make a tree the easiest thing to do is to get your hands on star shaped biscuit cutters of at least three or four different sizes. You want around 16 or so stars for each tree, then just stack them with icing to stick each layer together. If you don’t have cutters then make some templates to cut round instead (you can do this using auto shapes on the computer). One batch of mixture should make at least 8 I reckon.

Pipe lots of blobs of icing and add silver balls, chocolate drops and smarties for decoration.

I used a candle holder turned upside down for the base, but a disc of cardboard covered in tinfoil would work just fine too. Remember, whatever you use, you aren’t going to get back!

The cellophane I used to wrap it was bought from a florist supplies shop online and was about £3 for the roll, which I’ve been using for various projects for about 2 years!

Cut a big square (bigger than you think), I made one as large as my roll would allow. Place tree on the middle and bring all the corners to meet in the middle. scrunch the remaining edges together and call for help (this will save your little finger aerobics when you’re tying the ribbon). With someone else holding it all together, double knot a few pieces of gift ribbon and curl the ends with scissors. Chop off the messy bits of plastic.

Voila!

December 17, 2013

Gingerbread architecture: Phase 2

Assemble!

So, I have a confession to make, I didn’t actually photograph the assemblage of the big house. All my fingers and toes were required to hold it together until the icing dried, so there was nothing left besides my nose to press the camera trigger.

Instead I whipped up another half batch of dough and made a little one to show you how to, aren’t I lovely?

Things you need:

Royal icing

Piping bag/Strong sandwich bag (snip a corner off to pipe)

Base

Tinfoil

An extra pair of hands

Deep breaths

Step one:

Cover base in tinfoil/something pretty. Tin foil works well because it doesn’t soak up the icing. I used an upturned tray for the bigger one, and stuck ribbon where the tinfoil didn’t quite meet the edges. Chopping boards and baking trays also make a good base (but make sure you don’t need them for Christmas dinner first!) Alternatively you can buy one, but that would just eat into your sweets fund. Nobody wants that.

Step two:

Mix up your royal icing and put in icing bag. It has to be pretty thick, or construction will be hard going. At the same time, make sure you can pipe it without getting hand cramp.

Step three:

Place back wall on a flat surface (if you use your base you have less far to travel when you flip it). Pipe along the two sides, as shown above.

Step four:

Attach sides and hold for a while until the icing starts to dry, you might want to get another pair of hands involved here, or the salt and pepper shakers to everything in place. Pipe along the top edges.

Step five:

Place the front on top. Definitely don’t drop it on your way over and crack it. That would be really silly.

Step six:

Flip it! This is where with anything bigger, you will need someone else to help.

Now you can see the crack *sob*. So this also happened to my big house, I might show you in the next post, but I’m still deeply saddened by that (the sugar windows stuck to the tray rather than me dropping it but still, a perfectionist’s nightmare). I’m basically a massive klutz. All is not lost though.

At this stage you are unlikely to want to make any more gingerbread. So if this happens you need to make do and mend. This can be done with royal icing, but you’ll get a white line along the cracked bit. A better (albeit more perilous) way to fix the cracks is by making a sugar syrup. Essentially all you need to do is melt down some sugar in a frying pan and voila, you have baking’s version of super glue. Dip the broken pieces into the sugar and stick. Be careful though, definitely not a game for children to play. Sugar syrup is dangerously hot. If you end up dipping your thumb in it, don’t let your gut reaction be to stick it in your mouth to cool it off. That is a most unpleasant experience.

Some people use sugar syrup to put their whole house together, but quite frankly, I value my life more than that, I’m far too clumsy.

Step seven:

Now you have it upright and relatively stable, ice it all over. This looks a bit messier on a little house than a big one, but basically go around all the edges inside and out with icing. You can really go to town on the inside corners as nobody will see them, the more you can reinforce at this stage the better.

Step eight:

Stick the roof on and leave as long as you can to dry before decorating.

Step nine:

Stay tuned for phase three later this week.

Happy festive baking!

December 16, 2013

Gingerbread architecture: Phase 1

Three and a bit years ago I stumbled across a marvellous young lady called Anna. She gave me the inspiration to start a new Christmas tradition. I implore you to do the same, there is very little as satisfying as creating a freestanding gingerbread structure – and I won’t lie, it helps that you have a year in between to recover and block out all the royal icing acrobatics it took you to get there.

Apologies in advance for some of the slightly odd measurements below, the recipe is a bit inbred at this stage. Original credit goes to Anna, but I’m not convinced she would still want ownership given my Canadian to English translations and elaboration on the method (I lost the original).

Things you need:

Plain flour: 1lb 10.5 oz/750g/5 cups

Soft light brown sugar: 5oz/140g/1 cup

Unsalted butter: 7oz/200g/1 cup

Eggs: 2

Treacle: 5 tbsp

Golden syrup: 8 tbsp

Salt: 1 tsp

Baking powder: 1 tsp

Ground ginger: 2 tsp

Cinnamon: 2 tsp

Nutmeg: 1 tsp

Other:

Royal icing: probably 2 boxes

A lot of sweets

A base (I used an upturned tray)

Patience: a generous glug

Step one:

Draw out your design on greaseproof paper. I did write down the dimensions of mine but I suspect it ended up in the recycling with a flurry of lists and post-it notes, but it is relatively straightforward maths.

Some tips:

Measure your baking trays and base first. I hope that doesn’t sound too obvious, I’ve had to go back to the drawing board before now, after realising to my disappointment that I don’t own industrial equipment.

When drawing the chimney, draw it directly onto the roof so that it is definitely at the right angle to put on your house later (see photo above left). Don’t forget you need two little rectangles as well, one the same height as the short edge, and one the same as the longer side – they should be the same width.

Draw the front and sides first so you can take the measurements for your roof from those, make sure you add a little for overhang etc.

Mark x2 or x1 and something to identify the pieces on each – they have a tendency to become unrecognisable at some stage.

Step two:

Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and spices. You will need a large bowl.

Step three:

Put butter, golden syrup, treacle and sugar into a saucepan and gently heat until sugar has melted.

Step four:

Beat the eggs with a fork in a small bowl and mix into flour mixture. Alternatively you can mix them with the treacle and syrup at an earlier stage and not heat these with the butter.

Pour in butter and treacle mixture.

Step five:

Stir wet ingredients into dry. Place bowl outside or in the fridge until completely cool.

Step six:

Dust a large work surface thoroughly with plain flour. Take a third to half of the mixture and mould into a ball.

Sprinkle dough and rolling pin with more flour and roll out. Make sure you keep turning the dough to keep it as square as possible. You want it to be about 5mm thick.

Step seven:

Grease baking trays well and then cut out all your shapes.

A tip with the larger pieces is to define the rough shape and then transfer to baking tray, in order to finish cutting once it’s on the tray. This will stop it stretching when you move it, as it’s fairly important to keep the edges as straight as possible. Of course, if your baking trays hate you as much as mine do, then they will warp themselves in the heat of the oven just to mock you.

When cutting out the chimney, flip the template over so that you can have pieces with right sides facing out all around.

Keep rolling and cutting until you have all the pieces you need.

Step eight:

If you want a stained glass window effect then put some boiled sweets in a sandwich bag and pound them to dust with a rolling pin. This takes a bit of welly, so best to do it at a sociable hour to keep the neighbours happy…sorry Audrey…

Fill your window gaps with the crushed sweets.

The bottom-right photo shows you my fatal mistake. For any pieces with windows like these, put greaseproof on the tray first. Otherwise you might have a spot of bother removing it due to its size, fragility, and your patience levels…more on that later.

Step nine:

Bake the pieces in the oven at gas mark 4/180 C/350 F.

Keep an eye on them, as different pieces will bake at different speeds, from 10 mins to 25! It’s always better to go a bit over than under though, as you can cover the darker areas in sweets, but nothing can hide/save a caved in roof because the biscuit was too soft. Having said that, my sister did prop my first roof up with a gingerbread dinosaur when I had that exact problem, so all is never lost.

Step ten:

Stay tuned! I will be posting a guide to assembling and decorating later this week.

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