Yesterday we headed into London to see the incredible edible gingerbread house. My favourite dream was brought to life with meringue clouds, a cupcake lawn, and a pond filled with sweets. Inside the house, shelves were made from Bourbon biscuits and pictures on the wall made from sweets. Edward was entertained by giant gingerbread men, accordion players and storytellers and didn’t know where to look as there was so much going on. We had to keep hold of him as he could tell everything was edible and kept trying to touch the house and all the sweets and cakes everywhere.…
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I had a whopping 107 entries to my Sew, Mama, Sew giveaway. I loved reading everyone’s comments on what they would make with the Royal Wedding fabric and I am pleased to announce the winner is Sallie. Congrats, Sallie! Is it too early to be thinking about Christmas? One of my favourite sewing books is Fa La La Felt and I can’t resist working my way through all the projects. I’ve made a lot of the patterns from it but these little felt gingerbread people really took my fancy! They were quick to make although I need to perfect the…
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When I saw the prompt for Ella’s Friday Carnival was cakes and cookies I knew I had to take part. I love baking and have had an idea for gingerbread cupcakes for a while. Gingerbread cupcakes To make 12 cakes I followed a standard cupcake recipe: 125g butter 125g caster sugar 2 eggs 125g self-raising flour 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence dash of milk Gingerbread Drinking Chocolate (from Hotel Chocolate) Cream the butter and sugar and add the vanilla essence. Beat the eggs and add to the mixture. Fold in the flour and add milk as necessary. The magic ingredient is…
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As part of my Day Zero challenge I’m aiming to take part in at least one swap a month. So in the run up to Christmas I signed up for a couple of Christmas swaps. First up was the Blogger’s Secret Santa organised by Leanne where I received a copy of Cath Kidston’s Sew! from Helen. It’s full of beautiful projects to make (some of which will probably end up as birthday and Christmas presents). I sent a Moleskine recipe journal to Domestic Goddesque. Then I joined up for the Secret Christmas Ornament Swap organised by Denise and I received…
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Christmas is my favourite time of year and yesterday we took some time out to make a gingerbread house with my youngest niece. It’s become a bit of a tradition and this year we tried a kit from Dr Oetker, which included the gingerbread, icing and sweets. It was really simple to put together. Daddy assembled the house and placed strategic dollops of icing and my niece decorated with marshmallows, jellies and smarties. The finished gingerbread house – the perfect holiday craft and it only took 30 minutes!
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I love trying anything gingerbread – sewing or baking related! A while ago I bought The mini Gingerbread House Kit. I wanted to make cute little gingerbread houses but didn’t realise that the small scale might make it quite so difficult. One of the first problems was that the gingerbread spread whilst cooking so needed to be re-cut whilst cooling. Putting together the gingerbread house was quite difficult but I don’t think our runny icing helped 🙂 They were fun to make but quite fiddily and after putting them together we lost the will to decorate them as suggested. Next…
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It’s been 6 weeks since I started my Day Zero list and I’ve made good progress. I’ve found having a list of things I want to achieve helps me focus. Sewing/craft projects So far I have made Edward a beanbag, finished covering our nursing chair, made my sister a draught excluder, made Edward a Clothkits cushion and finished a felt gingerbread house. I’ve taken part in at least one swap a month (via the Secret Post Swap and Swapbot) and made vintage tags for swaps and parcels. Cooking/baking I’ve made a couple of soups from scratch, made meringues, baked a…
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I love this little felt gingerbread house I recently made. It’s just a couple of inches high so looks great on our mantle. It’s made from a pattern in the softies kit. It’s a really simple little project that only took me an evening but will look great as a Christmas ornament on our mantlepiece or hanging on our Christmas tree. I’m getting stuck into my Christmas craft list which is just as well, only 9 weeks left!
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So I realised my blog is a bit short of gingerbread recipes so yesterday I whipped up a quick batch using my favourite never-fail recipe. My favourite gingerbread recipe This recipe makes 20 biscuits Preparation takes approx 25 mins Cook in 10-12 mins Ingredients: Plain flour 350g Bicarbonate of soda 1tsp Ground ginger 2 tsp Butter 100g Light muscovado sugar 175g Golden syrup 4 tbsp Large egg, 1 Optional – Currants 25g for decorating Preheat the oven to 190/gas 5 and lightly grease three baking trays Measure the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger into a bowl. Rub in the…