Gingerbread House

This year I didn't get as fancy with my GB house because I had structural challenges that took most of my time.

My cousin & I had the fun idea of trying to bake together via the Internet. She lives in Florida and I in Texas. We couldn't get a video going so we used our iPhone's FaceTime.

It worked well but we couldn't hold the phone AND work. So we decided to just check in as our projects moved forward.

My cousin, who was sick & should be resting and not baking, decided to bake some Italian cookies. Me, I had the GB house built and ready to go.

We made our first FaceTime call and reviewed our progress & hung up.

Immediately thereafter my house collapsed to the ground and her mixer failed to do the job!! Arg!!!

We didn't give up but we did postpone our event. I had to let my GB house set for at least a couple of hours before I could try again and she was ready to just throw the cookies in the oven and take a nap.

When I returned to decorate my GB house I decided to use Necco wafers as shingles (should have bought more). But I love how it looks.

Then as I was doing the final touches my icing bag busted open. So I couldn't do any more intricate decorations!! But I still had not piped out the windows! Dangit!!

I decided to use wheat thins and drew window panes with my candy icing. Genius!! I then glued candies all over with blops of icing and wha-la!!

Here is the final house. I think it turned out cute. My cousin said her cookies were still good in spite of her lack of taste buds. Dog seemed to like them too.

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Goodies

This year we did one of my favorite holiday activities- baking Christmas goodies.  Lucky for me, my good friend Kayle  & her sister decided to get crafty and join in the fun.

On the agenda are the following treats:

• Snowmen Sugar Cookies
• Snowflake Peppermint Candy
• Brownie Balls
• Dipped Pretzels

.... and possibly some wine drinking and snacking!!

First stop; pick up some more wine, last minute decor items, lunch & snacks.

Once in the kitchen it was baking time.  We started baking the sugar cookies & brownies.

As they were baking we started melting the chocolates for the brownie balls and snowflake candies.

Bake the Brownies using the non-cake method and after they cool, roll them into 1" balls. 

Then you dip them in the chocolate and decorate.  These were yummers and super cute!!

I didn't have many of these left to give out - note to self - make more of these.  Yummy!

For the melted snowman "look" I topped each cookie with royal icing.  Once it was set we then melted the marshmallows in the microwave for just a second to make them soft and then applied the semi-gooey mallows to the cookies and started decorating. 

• We used food-doodlers or food markers for eyes. 
• we used colored edible dots for buttons & noses. 
• We used colored icing tubes or gels for scarves. 
• Gels take a lot longer to dry (if ever) so if you need to stack them use an icing that will set like colored Royal or other candy icing.

The pretzels were super easy.... and this is when I think I finished my class of wine.... just dip them - then add sprinkles and lay on parchment paper to set.  These were fun and messy.  We found that smaller Jimmies and Dot Sprinkles stick best.  Do them over individual paper plates and you can pour the un-used sprinkles back into the jars.

 

The snowflakes peppermints were poured into snowflake molds with 1/2 chocolate and half peppermint flavored vanilla candy coating.  We then sprinkled crushed Peppermint on top.  They turned out super cute!!  But very sweet!  Maybe next year we'll make them a bit smaller.

It was a lot of fun making Christmas cookies and other treats with my fun friends! We've got a creative bunch here!!   I hope we can do something like this every Christmas!!