.Countdown to Christmas #20.

Tonight was our traditional "Gingerbread House" making night. We like the cheats version...using Milk Coffee biscuits. Not as tasty as gingerbread but much easier for me to prepare and the kids don't like gingerbread so I would be annoyed at all of the wastage if we were to make traditional houses! These are good too because they are mini so it means that everyone can make (and eat!!) their own.

I'm excited about this...I was reading this blog earlier in the week about their experience making gingerbread houses out of biscuits and discovered an AWESOME tip... if you have made these houses before you will know that it is a bit of a tedious task getting the biscuits to stand in proper formation using only icing. Walls falling down and roofs caving in are not fun when you have anxious children waiting to get into decorating! So, this year I made up a little bit of toffee mix and while it was still bubbling hot and runny (be careful!) dipped the sides of each biscuit into the syrup before joining them together. PERFECT! I told Carli about it and she did the same thing yesterday and was just as excited about the results. I highly recommend it. We used royal icing to decorate but once the houses are all stuck together with toffee you could use melted chocolate or regular icing. To make the toffee mixture I placed 1 cup of water and 2 cups of sugar in a saucepan and let it boil for about 10 minutes. Test a little bit of syrup by dropping it on the stainless steel sink or a plate or something else that is cool and if it sets then you are ready to roll!
Of course the lollies are the highlight for the kids! I like to control the amount of lollies they have and give them each an assortment to use rather than just open all of the bags and let them go crazy. (Mean Mum!)And Jaron couldn't follow the crowd this year, check out his award-winning architectural masterpiece! There was lot of precise biscuit measuring and cutting for this one...and the toffee was a breeze to help it stick together easily!