Christmas
Christmas
In this post I will be writing an activity or puzzle for each of the 25 days of Christmas (it's a bit like an advent calender).
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Perky penguins
Ingredients
- 3 jumbo chocolate buttons
- 150g icing made from royal icing sugar
- 3 walnut whips
- 100g chocolate flavour ready-to-roll fondant icing
- 3 red fruit pastilles ( as they look like woolly hats)
- 1 orange fruit pastille
- black writing icing
Method
- Cut the jumbo chocolate buttons in half and place together in pairs, rounded sides touching, to make feet. Snap the walnut off the top of the walnut whip and discard. Put a little royal icing on each pair of feet and stick a walnut whip on top.
- Divide the fondant icing in three. Take one piece and roll out into a sausage that is fat in the middle and thin at both ends. Flatten the ends to make flippers. Place the sausage on top of the walnut whip and shape the fat middle section into a head. Leave the flippers to hang free at the sides.
- To decorate, put the remaining royal icing into a piping or plastic bag and snip a tiny bit off the end. Pipe a circle on the front of each penguin. Pipe two dots for eyes. Pipe a circle on top of each head and stick on a fruit pastille. Pipe a blob on top for a bobble.
- Carefully cut three triangular pieces from the orange fruit pastille and stick on the face. Using the black writing icing pipe black dots in the centre of each eye. Leave to set.
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| Christmas bookmarks 8  9  10  |
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How to make candy cane's
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup light corn syrup
- 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1 teaspoon peppermint or spearmint extract
- 6 drops red or green food coloring
Directions
- Grease two baking sheets with butter; set aside. In a large saucepan, bring the sugar, water, corn syrup and cream of tartar to a boil. Cook, without stirring, until a candy thermometer reads 280° (soft-crack stage).
- Remove from the heat; stir in extract and food coloring. Immediately pour onto prepared pans in eight 8-in. strips. Let stand just until cool enough to handle, about 1-2 minutes.
- Working quickly, roll each strip into a 10-in. log. Cut each into two 5-in. lengths. Curve the top of each to form the handle of a cane. Cool completely. Store in an airtight container. Yield: 16 canes.
Top tip: We recommend that you test your candy thermometer before each use by bringing water to a boil; the thermometer should read 212°. Adjust your recipe temperature up or down based on your test.
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Gingerbread men
Ingredients
- 350g/12oz plain flour, plus extra for rolling out
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 125g/4½oz butter
Preparation method
- Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon and pour into the bowl of a food processor. Add the butter and blend until the mix looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar.
- Lightly beat the egg and golden syrup together, add to the food processor and pulse until the mixture clumps together. Tip the dough out, knead briefly until smooth, wrap in clingfim and leave to chill in the fridge for 15 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Line two baking trays with grease proof paper.
- Roll the dough out to a 0.5cm/¼in thickness on a lightly floured surface. Using cutters, cut out the gingerbread men shapes and place on the baking tray, leaving a gap between them.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until lightly golden-brown. Leave on the tray for 10 minutes and then move to a wire rack to finish cooling. When cooled decorate with the writing icing and cake decorations.
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- Christmas day!
- Thank you for reading and I hope you have a very merry Christmas.
- Lavender5328
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