A couple of
years ago gingerbread houses seemed to be all the rage. Some of the other
mothers at my child's school were buying beautiful ones from the local delicatessen,
either for their own tables or as gifts, and for some inexplicable reason I
decided I would have a go at making one. I have never been an "arty"
or particularly creative person and I really admire people who are, so I
thought I would take the easy way out and get a gingerbread house kit. How hard
could that be?
I couldn't
believe my eyes when I opened the kit and saw how many pieces were involved.
Then came the fiddly part of actually sticking it all together with icing that
seemed to be rapidly drying. I splashed icing on each piece as fast as I could and squished
them together, while grabbing another bit and lathering that in icing so that I
would have something to hold the first two pieces together. So, it went on
until I had the basic shape of a house (and I do mean "basic").
From there
it just needed decorating. Simple, right? Wrong! Not only did all of the little
baubles, candy canes and wreaths need to be glued on with icing, but I also had
to drizzle the roof with icing to make it look like snow.
Finally,
stressed to the max and in a state of exhaustion, it was finished. I felt a
wonderful sense of achievement and savoured the moment ..... for about 30
seconds until I noticed everything was starting to slide! The carefully drawn
windows on each side were just weird looking smudges of icing, the walls were
starting to splay, the roof was coming apart and the wreath was slipping!
I quickly
fixed what I could and whisked the whole thing downstairs to the laundry (the
coolest room in the house) where it sat in shame, waiting for Christmas Day.
Over the next 24 hours (when I wasn't shopping or wrapping presents), each time I went downstairs for something I had to
"redecorate" my gingerbread house.
Of course
it went down a treat on Christmas Day and my family, who realised what an
achievement this creation (despite its flaws) was for me, were very supportive.
However the ghost of Christmas gingerbread houses past still haunts me and I
can't see us having a homemade gingerbread house again in our house for a very
long time!
I have seen
a great meringue and strawberry Santa cake around this year - hmmm, maybe.....
how hard could it be??
The team at
nestling.
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