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Sunday, 30 December 2012
Christmas 2012
Ok so I could tell you everything I've been up to at Christmas but it would take hours, instead I'm just going to upload a million photos of food, family, presents and random stuff we got up to :) Hope you all had a very merry Christmas and a lovely new year! xxx
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Christmas baking! Including The Seven Kinds!
Last year we didn't get to do much Christmas baking as we had to leave for Norway last minute, so this year I made sure I did LOTS! Including a gingerbread house, seven kinds of Norwegian biscuits, accidental chilli sachertorte, failed croquembouche, gingerbread tree and festive chocolates.
First I'll start with the gingerbread house, I tried to make one last year but I made the dough too soft and it all fell to pieces in a slow but spectacular fashion, this year we made far better one - it stood up and everything. Because of last year's epic failure I was given a gingerbread house cutter set which made getting even side much easier. We went very much for the old Hansel and Gretel theme with the front and sides decorated with piping icing, candy canes and heart windows. the roof was decorated with piped tiles, mini smarties and a Norwegian and Union Jack flag. We then sat it on a lawn of snow (icing sugar), edged with smaries and placed one of my sprakly gingerbread candy candles on the snow because it looked pretty :) Fact.
Now for the seven kinds, every Christmas every house must make seven kinds of Christmas biscuits apparently it used be to show that you weren't poor so you could afford to make so many kinds. Now we do it because we're greedy and want to put as many in our faces as we can at any given time over the festive period...as fast as we can, or is that just us? There are loads of different kinds you can choose from so our seven were: pepperkaker (gingerbread), krumkaker (crispy cones), sirupsnipper (syrup snaps), serinakaker, goro (rich man cookies), berlinerkranser (Berlin wreaths) and sandkaker (sand cakes). The krumkaker and goro you need a special iron to make them with, lucky for us we have them and this was the first time we made goro, it wasn't my favourite but it looks so nice! My favourite has to be krumkaker and serinkaker which is a gorgeous short biscuits covered in nuts and pearl sugar...actually the berlinerkanser were also very short, buttery and covered in sugar - always a winner! We gave them out to family for Christmas as we made so many which was a nice extra gift to give and still have enough left over for work tomorrow, bonus!
Berlinerkranser
Now the sachertorte, my sister-in-laws parents have been asking me to make them one for ages, about a year and I keep forgetting so I thought this would be a lovely gift, unfortunately without realising I put in chilli chocolate instead of dark...and didn't realise until after..but..BUT apparently it baked out and you couldn't taste it (we didn't tell them what I did and my brother reported back!)
Failed croquembouche..now I have actually successfully made one before so I was quite gutted it all went to .... sugar. We've had a new oven fitted and in short, I hate it. I hate baking in it which is why my posts have been a bit thin on the ground recently. But we're moving soon so hopefully the cooker there will be much better :). The profiteroles just didn't dry out properly inside and I should have compensated by adding more caramel for structural support, but I didn't - and it all fell apart before my eyes. So in the end it ended up as a profiterole pile covered in chocolate, spun sugar, snowflakes, gold balls and gold leaf. We had this on Christmas even as this is when we celebrate Christmas being vikings and while it didn't end up looking how I wanted, it still tasted great.
You've seen the gingerbread tree before but here's another picture, it was visually great and tasted really nice, I'll definitely be making one next year!
And last but not least the festive chocolates. I made some to give away which included glittery Christmas puddings (mould bought from Sew White) and some patterned after dinner mints. These were basically mint flavoured chocolates spread over snowflake chocolate transfers and just before they set I just them out into cute shapes such as moose, heart and snowflakes. These were great after a heavy made and looked great too.
I still have lots of Christmas baking stuff I didn't get a chance to use so hopefully I'll get round to it next year! I will also be putting up a photo post from Christmas :)
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First I'll start with the gingerbread house, I tried to make one last year but I made the dough too soft and it all fell to pieces in a slow but spectacular fashion, this year we made far better one - it stood up and everything. Because of last year's epic failure I was given a gingerbread house cutter set which made getting even side much easier. We went very much for the old Hansel and Gretel theme with the front and sides decorated with piping icing, candy canes and heart windows. the roof was decorated with piped tiles, mini smarties and a Norwegian and Union Jack flag. We then sat it on a lawn of snow (icing sugar), edged with smaries and placed one of my sprakly gingerbread candy candles on the snow because it looked pretty :) Fact.
Now for the seven kinds, every Christmas every house must make seven kinds of Christmas biscuits apparently it used be to show that you weren't poor so you could afford to make so many kinds. Now we do it because we're greedy and want to put as many in our faces as we can at any given time over the festive period...as fast as we can, or is that just us? There are loads of different kinds you can choose from so our seven were: pepperkaker (gingerbread), krumkaker (crispy cones), sirupsnipper (syrup snaps), serinakaker, goro (rich man cookies), berlinerkranser (Berlin wreaths) and sandkaker (sand cakes). The krumkaker and goro you need a special iron to make them with, lucky for us we have them and this was the first time we made goro, it wasn't my favourite but it looks so nice! My favourite has to be krumkaker and serinkaker which is a gorgeous short biscuits covered in nuts and pearl sugar...actually the berlinerkanser were also very short, buttery and covered in sugar - always a winner! We gave them out to family for Christmas as we made so many which was a nice extra gift to give and still have enough left over for work tomorrow, bonus!
Left to right:
Krumkaker, sirupsnipper, goro and pepperkaker
The pigs say 'God Jul' which is Merry Christmas in Norwegian,
printed with a biscuit stamp I was sent by the lovely Sew White
Krumkaker, sirupsnipper, goro and pepperkaker
The pigs say 'God Jul' which is Merry Christmas in Norwegian,
printed with a biscuit stamp I was sent by the lovely Sew White
Berlinerkranser
Left to right:
Sandkaker, serinakaker and berlinerkranser
Sandkaker, serinakaker and berlinerkranser
decorated Pepperkaker
Failed croquembouche..now I have actually successfully made one before so I was quite gutted it all went to .... sugar. We've had a new oven fitted and in short, I hate it. I hate baking in it which is why my posts have been a bit thin on the ground recently. But we're moving soon so hopefully the cooker there will be much better :). The profiteroles just didn't dry out properly inside and I should have compensated by adding more caramel for structural support, but I didn't - and it all fell apart before my eyes. So in the end it ended up as a profiterole pile covered in chocolate, spun sugar, snowflakes, gold balls and gold leaf. We had this on Christmas even as this is when we celebrate Christmas being vikings and while it didn't end up looking how I wanted, it still tasted great.
You've seen the gingerbread tree before but here's another picture, it was visually great and tasted really nice, I'll definitely be making one next year!
And last but not least the festive chocolates. I made some to give away which included glittery Christmas puddings (mould bought from Sew White) and some patterned after dinner mints. These were basically mint flavoured chocolates spread over snowflake chocolate transfers and just before they set I just them out into cute shapes such as moose, heart and snowflakes. These were great after a heavy made and looked great too.
I still have lots of Christmas baking stuff I didn't get a chance to use so hopefully I'll get round to it next year! I will also be putting up a photo post from Christmas :)
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