Idly, a few nights ago, I came across a rather beautifully (probably professionally) gingerbread 'wreath' covered in iced gingerbread stars. I gazed upon this gloriously made confectionery and thought ... I want to try that!
So quick as a I could, I purchased some star cookie cutters and informed my co-conspirators (although at that point they did not know this is what they had become) and after a bit more research into recipes, I found the ones I wanted. One which produced a gentle hint of ginger in a golden biscuit and a second richly spiced punchy one in a dark dough.
The ingredients purchased, the dough made and chilled in the fridge overnight, the cutters washed and ready - all that was needed was my co-conspirators to land with their icing kits and cookie cutters and their best icing ideas!
This afternoon we started. There was lots of rolling of dough, cutting and cooking in shifts, cooling and stacking until we were ready to mix the icing and blend the colours.
Some of the biscuits had windows cut into them and boiled sweets were crushed and added to make stained glass window panes.
We had tree and star shaped windows and the bubbles and dimples made the 'glass' look soooo good!
We all sat around the diningroom table and with mugs of tea and icing bags loaded and ready, we began to decorate the stars and festive tree shapes. The early decorations were stars and snowflakes but as the afternoon wore on slightly more wacky decorations began to appear ..... headphones, Sydney Opera House, the cat and the dog, squid, Santa, flowers, and other strange designs!
We chose to make the colours wintery and frosty and had great fun adding (one drop at a time) the blue or the black to the lavender or three drops of blue to the white until we had the shades we were after.
Eventually Eldest's girlfriend was defeated and I had to go into the kitchen to start cooking the evening meal, leaving Youngest and his girlfriend to complete the icing and eventually all 130 (ish) biscuits were decorated and ready for their photographs! I say 130 - ish, we did not count them at the beginning, so we did a tot up of what we had 'sampled' as the afternoon went on and added them to the survivors on the table.
Then in the evening, after we'd eaten and washed up - we sat around the diningroom table again and played a boardgame and ate biscuits ... lots of biscuits... !
I think we may have started a new tradition although next time, I will probably make less dough - chuckle.
