The Gingerbread House Fail

HAPPY BELATED CHRISTMAS AND HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

OK now that's out of the way... 

As Christmas is basically finished, I have reached the point in which proper work is supposed to be done to prepare exams coming up but I am just not feeling it, so I am trying to cling on to any thread of Christmas that I can. If I am still doing festive things it is still Christmas and I don't have to work... shh... It is the truth.

So I decided to build a gingerbread house with my brother... 

I used Mary Berry's Recipe as I have never done this before and the quantities are TOO big to make one of my own... 

And we began and it seemed to be going fine, after a slight hiccup about measurements, the dough was coming together. But then when we tried to roll out the dough it wouldn't stick together. 

We tried everything, and I mean everything, we added milk, water, butter, but nothing worked... HOW DO YOU FIX THIS?! Seriously I want to know, so any ideas leave in the comments below! 

Instead of throwing about a kilo of mixture away, we salvaged it and made millions of ginger biscuits. We even put crushed boiled sweets in holes in the middle of them, to make them like stained glass, oooooooh. Well fancy, I know.

I don't have a picture of them because they are just not pretty but they look like iced biscuits and they taste lovely. Claps for Mary!

Anyway, I should get back to eating the mountain of biscuits as I don't want to spend the whole of 2014 living off them.

Rocky Road Bites

A simple delicious thing which you can make from pretty much anything in your cupboards.

220g Chocolate: 120g Milk and 100g dark but this can be edited.
75g Marshmallows
75g Chopped Mixed Nuts

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.

Once completely melted, stir in the other ingredients - they don't have to be the ones I have mentioned. You could use digestives, sultanas, popcorn if you really want etc. They should be covered in chocolate. 

You can pour the mixture in to a greased tray and cut in to squares but I have been inspired by Nigella and I prefer them in small dollops. They are easy bite size chunks without slicing.

Leave to cool, if you put them in a fridge the shine of the chocolate will fade, but obviously it is often the only solution.

Christmas Countdown: Iman's Cake

On Monday it was my friend Iman's birthday, so I made her favorite cake of mine...

LEMON DRIZZLE CAKE

Ingredients:
125 g unsalted butter
175 g caster sugar
2 large eggs
zest of 1 lemon
175 g self raising flour
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons milk
For the syrup
juice of 1 ½ lemons
100 g caster sugar

23x13x7cm loaf tin lined (you can get slot in pull out ones)

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees fan/ gas mark 4
2. Cream together the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
3. Beat the eggs and lemon zest in to the butter and sugar.
4. Slowly fold in the flour and then add the lemon juice and milk. 
5. Once all combined, pour into the prepared loaf tin and back for 45 mins or until risen and golden. To make sure it is cooked, insert a cake tester or skewer and make sure it comes out clean.
6. The prepare the syrup, put sugar and lemon juice in to a pan. Heat until the sugar dissolves, make sure that it doesn't burn.
7. Take the cake out of the oven and stab it in order to create holes in the top of the cake.
8. Pour the syrup over the top and let is absorb it while the cake cools.
9. Remove the cake from the tin once cooled, not before or it will all fall apart due to the liquid.

insert boring photo of a loaf cake..

I promise it tastes lovely and if you want to make it prettier you can make a glaze by mixing icing sugar and lemon juice and drizzling it over the top.