Happy New Year

Hello everyone, Happy New year. To be honest I'm not really that fusses about new year's, but it was an excuse to use some of my Christmas presents yay!


I was lucky enough to get a total of 127 cookie cutters! This 101 cookie cutter set was from the Cookies, Cakes and Craft shop, and when it came it was huge. I now have loads of basic shapes, Halloween, Christmas, etc... as well as ones like dinosaurs.






The 25 piece Ausstechformen set was a present from friends in Germany, and had really cute winter/Christmas ones, such as a little elf and a rocking horse. The recipe box was also a gift and I look forward to writing recipe cards from other blogs to try.


Here's my favourites, including my snowman bun wrappers, and teapot cutter (also from Cakes Cookies and Craft Shop):



I did make some biscuits to christen them, but with so much food at Christmas they ended up in the freezer for another day when we'd appreciate them more. I kept a few out, enough to say:

Gingerbread house

I had wanted to do this last year, but couldn't find the time. Luckily I was off work this week, so decided to make my gingerbread house!


I found this site, gingerbread house heaven, really helpful as they provide templates and loads of advice. I based mine on the basic template, but then had to scale it down a bit, as my batch of gingerbread wasn't quite enough.





The inside of the walls was sugarpaste, to give it something to lean against, and the rest of it was put together with royal icing mix. The mix was really thick and I needed to use my hands to get it into all the gaps. I used some tins to support it overnight while it dried.


Then it was onto the fun bit: decorating!!!


I considered making it accurate, but it was more fun seeing how many sweets I could balance on it :) Chocolate buttons are great roof tiles, and I used some of the icing to make icicles. Unfortunately they just looked like the icing drips.



I bought the wee jelly figures last year, so we couldn't eat them, but I had to have Santa and a reindeer going down the chimney.



Once I made it, I had to wait a few days to enjoy it before I cut it. From being fairly sturdy assembled it came apart remarkably easily. I suspect that the thick icing was still a little wet! I used a sharp knife between the walls. I had been worried that it would have gone soggy, but the actual gingerbread was still nice. That extra spoonful of ginger really made a difference!