Blogging again, gingerly...

Haha. Planned to post more often this year... eleven months later as I look back, yeahnotsomuch. But moving along: here’s what I got up to, baking-wise, for Christmas. Inspired by ZuckerBaby’s spectacular gingerbread TARDIS, I decided to make a gingerbread house again (following my inaugural effort last year). I followed the same recipe guideline as ZB, over at this excellent e-book, and based my design on the Mountain Retreat pattern PDF there. But like last year, this was to be an Australian (Strayan!) house with no snow to be seen — strictly cocoa-coloured icing to cement the thing together, a textured 'tin' roof, and a bit of a front yard. The grass is quite a bright shade of green (they must have put down some fresh turf, eh?) and I took ZB’s lead and used eucalyptus drops to melt into the windows.

Here’s a view with a torch shining into the windows, and so you can see the less than perfect finish on the roof; I’m claiming that’s where the possums get in.

Also, I made the ‘Christmas cake’ for the family this year, which actually meant one dozen rum raisin cupcakes; I topped them with some little fondant gumleaves (ha, I sound really parochial!:

Oh, and one of the presents I gave to family was a selection of these fabulous fruity, chewy lollies (think soft taffy) from Stillwater Sweets. They’re in Kuranda in northern Queensland, but have an online shop — I can vouch for the deliciousness of their pineapple, mango, lime and strawberry flavours (the four included in the mixed bags) and banana, but they have many more that I look forward to trying one day. They’re even labelled as vegan. Highly recommended!

That’s all for now, but I can see a 2012 photo dump in my near future... P.S. I know the photos are less than ideal — I’m still getting used to my newish camera.

And all through the (gingerbread) house...

So that's another Christmas done and dusted. We had family gatherings on both Christmas Day and Boxing Day, which meant slight variations on a very tasty spread of salads and vegetable dishes. Photo time here — I think it's all pretty self-explanatory. Thanks, Mum, for another delicious vegan lunch, and to my brother for awesome fruit-cutting skillz.



This year I thought I'd finally attempt a gingerbread house, as I'd been meaning to do for a few years. It is definitely not the easiest undertaking. I used this recipe posted on Vegansaurus, which was simple enough, and followed the templates they suggested. Rolling and cutting the various pieces without the dough breaking or cracking proved trickier for me. Assembling the baked pieces was surprisingly easy, and decorating was as fun as you'd expect. I only started it on the 24th, so was adding the finishing touches after lunch on Christmas Day. Time for more photos (and note the lack of "snow" — this is a Strayan Chrissy, mate)!



It ended up looking almost exactly like this:



There certainly is room for improvement: the gingerbread was a little thin, slightly overcooked, and warped or bubbled in a few spots; I'd use a smaller board and keep things closer together (although I quite like the "huge suburban yard" look this has); I'd remember to... um, cut windows into the damn thing; I'd bother adding a chimney next time, and maybe use a more complex design. I'll call this a good start.

Also, there are some questions such as, "How come they used the same home-made macadamia praline stuff on the roof as they did in their gardens by the front door?" and "Why did they use such coarse crushed mint gravel for their front path?" and "Do you suppose they'll lay down some turf in the back yard, or just leave it covered with that aluminium foil?" These, however, are all Things We Don't Need to Know.

Merry Christmas

For vegan cake at Christmas, I whipped up my first batch of VCTOTW Gingerbread Cupcakes with vanilla icing. I loved the chopped pieces of ginger in the cake (even though, or maybe because, I didn't chop them up especially finely...)





The part I really wish I could take credit for: the vegan lunch offerings included two salads, corn and broccoli fritters in chickpea flour batter. And Mum's always-fantastic panforte, which she veganised from a recipe a few years ago.



So anyway, Merry Christmas!