christmas + gingerbread

merry christmas!

So, this year like most, the Lim household (minus Kelvin) hosted Christmas lunch for our relatives. We aren't exactly religious so Christmas day is more of a 'let's make a whole bunch of food and eat it!' kind of occasion which is absolutely fine by me. 

And as usual, I was in charge of the desserts. I already had two ideas in mind, some form of cake and a pavlova but didn't know what else to make. Biscotti? Brownies? Tarts? And then...sudden inspiration! A gingerbread house! Festive! Pretty! And I only have one day to make it! Crap! 

Anyway I did a little google searching, found this Simple gingerbread house recipe. I went mostly by the picture but deviated here and there. 

Cue pictures and compare for yourself.

sad melting snowman with slight duck-like features

demolition!

So I am quite happy about how everything turned out. There were a few ugly things that could have been better *ahem* (snowman and tree) but I do love the roof and my weird icing and cachous pattern on the front which was meant to look like a snowflake but eh. 

The gingerbread actually tasted quite nice. I was expecting it to be dry and icky and purely for decorative purpose but I was pleasantly surprised it didn't taste like crap. 

For reference:

Walls: Gingerbread, mini chocolate fingers

Roof: Gingerbread and flaked almonds

Doors: mini chocolate fingers, smarties, choc-chip (door knob)

'Snowflake': cachous 

Logs: mini snowflakes

Snowman: royal icing, chopped orange sprinkle (nose), chopped chocolate (eyes), jube and choc-chip (hat), cachous (buttons)

Chimney: Marshmallow log dipped in chocolate

Snow: dessicated coconut, icing sugar

Footpath: homemade chocolate freckles

that's attractive

So difficulty level? Not bad really. It's not technically difficult but it does take time, effort and care. I worked on this from about 10pm-5am (by accident! I didn't realize it was that late.) and then 4pm-12am (with long food breaks and distractions and general procrastinating such as watching Game of Thrones and season four of Buffy again. Thank you Log for that DVD. Twas much appreciated. Oh my goodness I hate Riley, go away. Buffy, how could you possibly like a guy as boring as that? And I love Spike. Ah! Oz! Willow! And Giles! Not so much Zander but WHOA! That went a bit off topic). So if you make a gingerbread house, it's best to give it time.

I didn't find the construction of this very difficult and have fallen in love with royal icing (easy to make and sets like glue). The walls and roof was surprisingly easy to put together and only waited about a couple minutes to let dry before sticking the next thing on. The worst bit was my snowman which I initially made out of a white chocolate truffles but they wouldn't keep their shape and kept melting. I ended up just using the icing but that too was still too soft but passable. The tree also kept falling down and had to use a lot of white chocolate to stick it down. And it was kinda ugly because I'm a bad icer. But all in all, not too hard.

So I say success.

OKAY! Other pictures of the day.

flourless chocolate cake topped with cream and berries

tropical pavlova: topped with cream, mango, kiwi fruit and passionfruit

baklava courtesy of our neighbours

my hand model: Catherine

hand models: Catherine and Nathan

lame jokes

christmas t-shirts and typical teenagers

carnage

So yes. That's Christmas. And the end of the long, very picture filled post. Oh, and to the crazy naked girl and sister who waited for this to be posted, I've got some leftovers for you.