Gingerbread houses 2012

This year we decided to change the recipe we used to make our gingerbread houses and make the gingerbread houses much smaller. We found that the bigger ones look prettier and can fit more decorations on them, but that the children just east all the lollies instead of eating the gingerbread. This recipe is one that the children like eating, so I was hopeful it would be more successful.

Ingredients:
125g margarine
1/2 cup of Caster Sugar
1 egg yolk
2 cups of plain flour
3 teaspoons of ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon of bi-carb soda
1/4 cup of golden syrup warmed for 20 seconds in the microwave

-beat butter and sugar until creamy

-add egg yolk and mix thoroughly

- sift flour, ginger, pepper and bi-carb soda together and then add to the butter mixture along with the golden syrup. This should bring the dough together into a thick stick ball of dough

- knead dough on lightly floured surface and roll out to a 1/2cm thickness

-cut the house pattern out of the dough and bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Makes 1 house and a few tiny biscuits to taste test.

I used the computer to make house shapes to print out so I could use them as templates for cutting out my gingerbread house pieces.

It is a good thing that royal icing can make up for our wonky house pieces!

The children had a lovely time decorating the houses and then eating them.

Biscuit Wreath

This year my oldest son wanted to take in a gift to share with all the teachers from his school and he wanted it to be something edible. While we were sitting in a waiting room at an appointment he found a picture of a biscuit wreath and decided that this was exactly what he wanted to make.

We made a butter biscuit recipe with white chocolate added to the mix for a richer biscuit. Once we cut out the biscuits we 'glued' them together into a wreath shape with melted chocolate. I thought this was easier than a royal icing alternative and the children could manage without my help.

White Chocolate Butter Biscuits

200 grams of butter

1 cup of caster sugar

1 egg

2 1/4 cups of plain flour

100 grams of grated white chocolate

Extra 150grams  white chocolate for joining the biscuits

Icing sugar for sifting over the finished wreath

Cream the butter and sugar then add the egg and mix well.

Slowly add the flour and grated chocolate to the mixture. 

Once the mixture comes together in a big lump put it in the fridge for half an hour.  

Roll the mixture out and cut out various sized stars, place on a baking tray and put in the oven at 180C conventional or 170C fan forced. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until they start to colour - these biscuits are not meant to be brown, so stay close to the oven when cooking as the chocolate in the mix ensures that they go from cooked to burnt in a few minutes!

Once the biscuits have cooled, melt the extra chocolate and use it to glue the stars in a wreath shape. Sift icing sugar over the top to finish.

Pasta Angel

When I was younger ... a lot younger ... I made pasta angels to give my friends and family for Christmas. I always intended to make more each year and then wouldn't get around to it. Since I have a few extra sets of hands this year I am determined to make them again.

The first materials that we need are a few different types of pasta. Rigatoni pasta makes a good body, while the bowtie pasta forms the wings.

My boys glued the wings to the body with PVA glue and left them to dry overnight. 

Next we used macaroni pasta to form the arms. These were slightly trickier to glue on, but we found that if we rested the arms on the wings then it would stay long enough to dry. Again, we left the arms to dry overnight.

Being slightly forgetful, I didn't photograph the next few steps. We found a plastic bunch of grapes at Spotlight and pulled it apart. Each grape was the right size to form a head for our little angels. We glued the grapes on to the bodies. Then we dipped the angels into a tin of enamel paint and used the stems to hang them to dry on a coat hanger. I made sure that this was over a piece of plastic so that the drips wouldn't fall onto the concrete.

Once the heads were dry we glued tiny star pasta on to form the hair.

Once all the glue was dry then we painted the hair  and the tips of the wings gold and drew on two black eyes. 

And here is one of the finished angels.

Cardboard Roll Advent Calendar

I love counting down to Christmas, and now I have children it makes it even more exciting. I am not so keen on chocolate filled calendars since it really doesn't have all that much to do with the  meaning of Christmas - not that I need an excuse to make our own advent calendar. 

We cut 24 cardboard rolls to the same size and painted them green. Then we set them out in the shape of a Christmas tree and glued them together. I found that we needed to hold them together with pegs until the glue dried. When the glue was completely set we removed the pegs and glued the cardboard tree to a big piece of stiff card. The children used stencils to paint the word 'Advent' onto the cardboard backing. On standing back to admire our tree, we were dismayed to realise that the tree looked maroon, not green. We poked green tissue paper into each little hole and solved that problem.

Now the hard part is done, all that is left is to work out what we are going to put in each hole. I think we will write a nice thing we can do for someone else for each day and put it in the little holes.

Paper Christmas Trees

We were playing with shapes today when Imogen decided that this one was a tree. This tree then needed to be decorated.

So I found some small tubes of puffy paint. It dries in a 3D blob, so would stand out from the card. I also found an odd assortment of sequins, beads and buttons to use.

Here is a little forest of trees

We decided to stick them to the cards with sticky dots (removable, reusable stickers) so that the tree can be detached from the card and placed on a mantle or shelf as a decoration.

Nativity Card

Here we have a fingerprint family (and since I am typing on the computer you can safely deduce that the fingers were not mine). The house is made of sticks and glue and hopefully it will hold together better than the little pig stick house did! I am unsure as to whether I should risk posting these ones due to the wonky nature of the sticks. 

Christmas Cards with Clay Ornaments

Anyone with a child at school will understand the volume of cards required before Christmas. And when you have a child that wants to make every single card himself, then you will understand why we start making them early.

Here are our latest efforts using the clay ornaments we made earlier in the year.

Gingerbread House

Here we have our Christmas gingerbread house. Last year I decided to just buy a gingerbread house kit from the supermarket (seen above). This year we are planning on making our own to give friends as presents, so hopefully I'll be able to post it before Christmas as well as this one. We  made some royal icing to glue the lollies on to the house as decorations. This icing dries really quickly, so it is ideal for small children to use as glue! I found that this recipe made enough icing for two houses. 

Royal Icing Recipe

2 cups of sifted icing sugar

2 egg whites

1 lemon

1. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks 

2. Gradually add the sugar with a squeeze of lemon juice.

Gingerbread Christmas Trees

This is an easy recipe for gingerbread that can be transformed into a variety of gifts. James is very fond of making gingerbread Christmas trees. This consists of cutting out 2 stars in each size and sticking them together with melted chocolate. James then tipped the rest of the chocolate over the top as snow. I then package up in cellophane and ribbons for a present.

Ingredients:

125g margarine

1/2 cup of Caster Sugar

1 egg yolk

2 cups of plain flour

3 teaspoons of ground ginger

1 teaspoon of bi-carb soda

1/4 cup of golden syrup warmed for 20 seconds in the microwave

3 different sized star biscuit cutters

white chocolate melts

hundreds and thousands

-beat butter and sugar until creamy

-add egg yolk and mix thoroughly

- sift flour, ginger and bi-carb soda together and then add to the butter mixture along with the golden syrup. This should bring the dough together into a thick sticky ball of dough - if it is too sticky then add a little extra flour

- knead dough on lightly floured surface and roll out to a 1/2cm thickness

- cut out equal amounts of stars from each sized cutter

- bake for 15 minutes or until golden

- remove biscuits from the oven and cool on biscuit racks

- melt white chocolate and use to stick the star biscuits together. Each tree consists of 2 large, 2 medium and 2 small biscuits. Drizzle remaining chocolate on top of the biscuits and sprinkle hundreds and thousands on top.

Christmas Puddings

One of my favourite times of year is the lead up to Christmas (okay, getting started early...). I love trying to think up new and exciting ways to involve the children in preparing gifts for our families and friends.

This is one treat that the boys like to make for their friends (usually I manage not to eat all the lollies before we make them!!). Faux Christmas Puddings.

We start out with a packet of Chocolate Royals, mint leaves, white chocolate melts and jaffas. Melt the chocolate, cool it a little and dribble it onto the chocolate royals. this forms the glue to hold the jaffas and mint leaves in place. I usually cut the mint leaf in half most of the way and then wedge it around the jaffa. That way I can balance everything on top and let it set in the fridge. Otherwise I'd be waiting around for the chocolate to nearly set before I could place the lollies on top.

Mmmmm.... all the puddings need now is some cellophane and ribbons to make a tasty present for someone special. That is, if they last that long.

Stick Christmas Tree Card

We're getting started on card making early. I think that now I have one child at school we need to have A LOT of cards. This one is very easy if you have paddle pop sticks. Simply paint some green and some brown and leave them to dry.

When the paddle pop sticks are dry we used one brown one and 3 green ones per tree.

Put 5 dots of glue on the brown stick and attach cut pieces of the green stick in order of size. The bottom green stick only has the ends trimmed. Once again we left it to dry before attaching it to a card. I like my trees plain, but the boys wanted to glue decorations on their ones.

Clay Ornaments

At Majura Womens Group last year we had a session on making clay beads for necklaces. At the end of the session we took home the left over pieces of clay to finish making beads with. It just so happens that that day I was in a rush and my small packet of clay squares were hastily shoved into the cupboard when I came home and forgotten about until this week.

I wondered if it would be possible to roll out the clay and make little Christmas ornaments with them. So I set the boys to work rolling out the clay and cutting out shapes. Once the shapes were cut out the boys decorated them, using a toothpick to scratch drawings on to the clay. Then we simply popped them in the oven to cook for 20 minutes.

These ornaments are destined to decorate Christmas cards.

Thumb Print Christmas Tree Cards

James loves finger painting, so while we were making the caterpillar cards we decided to make a few Christmas tree cards at the same time.