My apologies for the hiatus everyone! Husband and I had a brilliant holiday in the Cook Islands in December and arrived home on the 22nd to a whirlwind of Christmas related catching up. I feel like we did "Christmas Concentrated" with the addition of a decent dose of Jet Lag :)
I had originally intended to have people over for Gingerbread house construction night - I bought the cookie cutter works- all the pieces of the house plus pathways, chimneys and all the fuss, intending to make my first one from scratch and the pieces for all my friends.
Well, that went out the window when the jet lag hit- but I was determined to make at least my house so on Christmas eve eve I hauled myself out from underneath the mountain of holiday washing and cooked up a storm.
The recipe I used made me glad I didn't make one for a stack of friends, for one house it required 5 Cups of flour! So I won't give you the recipe here - Next year I'll go hunting for a better one, there are millions online and I'm sure heaps in my cookbooks too.
I'd just recommend avoiding the Women's Weekly Christmas and Entertaining Magazine one 2009/10 - it's true it cooked up nice and solid, but the pieces swelled out of shape a little and made it a little tricky to assemble. But fun! I love that icing that turns to cement, it makes you feel very talented when it all starts to stand up and look like a house when really it's actually quite simple.
As always the fun part was the decoration - I had a blast playing with mini marshmallows, musk sticks, jelly rings and multi coloured cachous - love it! and the house itself is full of chocolate eclairs and fantales. It's just sad that husband and I are so full of sugary treats we can't manage to crack it open just yet, but I'm sure the day will come soon :P
I hope you all had a wonderful christmas. Happy 2011!
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When you do break into it be sure to start by pulling away bits of wall around the door- it gives the house the most hilarious appearance of something large and monsterous having broken out of it. (well, it amused me when I saw a friend's gingerbread house where they had started breaking bits off from around the door)
ReplyDeleteI'm willing to help you eat the house. What are friends for?
ReplyDeletei love the roof! happy new year dude and here's to another year of delicious eats!
ReplyDeleteI love decorating these houses the best! I mean baking the house is nice and all but decorating it is definitely the pick of the tasks! :P
ReplyDelete