gingerbread

Now im usually very late when it comes to Christmas decorations etc (well everything really!) But this year I decided to get into the festive spirit early(ish) by making these cute gingerbread.

I used the recipe from BBC food, and might just have to applaud them! The dough is perfect although I found a few issues with the baking... you have to roll them a little thinner than it states (I would say around 3mm) or they do spread! This alters the cooking time and I found 10 mins was plenty. I also made 45 not 20 as suggested by their recipe! But I would recommend this recipe to any beginner as some recipes can be such a faff, melting butter and syrup and getting in an awful sticky mess when you discover it hasn't set properly!
I always dread making biscuits for the family as they can be quite critical, but these have defiantly got the thumbs up.

 Couldn't resist using my duck cutter so decided to give one a christmas hat!

I love this tree cutter

A selection of the 45 I made... the work top was a little crowded shall we say....

hello

Hi, I'm new to the world of blogging but decided to give it a go! So yesterday in school I made 46 meringues and around 60 truffles for the christmas fayre! The rest of the class got to make gingerbread but lucky me had the task of making the mirangue on my own. Whipping up the mixture was no problem but when it came to trying to work out how to split the mixture into 46 I ran into difficulties...
Now I like to think that I'm fairly good at maths having got a B in As maths but my basic times tables failed me!  Having eventually figured out I needed 9 trays to fill 8 on each and 6 on the last I began piping (and praying for the best!)
The meringues were to be sandwiched together with ganache so I knew I needed an even number but never dreamed that I would get the target 46. It was looking so good until I got to the 45th one... the piping bag was empty! Mini heart attack time! I scraped together all the scraps I could find and managed to somehow sqeeze out the final one.
I have no idea how I got exactly the right amount, and doubt I could do it again!
Next came truffle shaping, and lets just say I now know why chocolate makers wear gloves. I was caked in the stuff! Layer upon layer of truffle mixture and cocoa powder with the odd chocolate vermicelli thrown in. My hands smelt of chocolate all night! You may think this sounds good but it was like a form of torture!
Well all in all I'm quite pleased with my efforts so let's just hope they sell well tomorrow!