Showing posts with label gingerbread. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gingerbread. Show all posts

Wednesday, 22 January 2014

Christmas Past

Happy New Year, kittens! It was a few weeks ago, but here are some photos from Christmas, when all I did was eat a lot and have marathon sessions of movie-and-TV-show-watching. 
A rather unfortunate gingerbread man fell into my coffee. 

We had homemade gingerbread biscuits for breakfast on Christmas morning, made with the recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. I like my gingerbread really spicy, so I always add twice as much ginger to the recipe when making. 

Friday, 6 January 2012

Christmas!

It's taken a while, but I'm finally getting round to posting photos of my Christmas feast. We decided to have it at home this time, and celebrated it on Christmas Eve with the delightful Miss Kitty Valentine, my cushion-making partner in crime Aldona and her family.

In true over-the-top Polish tradition, our dinner consisted of at least 12 dishes (since I'm not actually Polish, I don't know if it is true that a Polish Christmas dinner has to include 12 dishes, it's just what I've been told.) 
The coffee table had an array of sweets - (from top), homemade panforte, a quince, ginger and walnut cake based on this recipe, and some untraditionally shaped gingerbread biscuits (gingerbread T-rex, anyone?). Aldona also brought along some makowiec (poppyseed cake) and more biscuits.
The star of the night, a perfectly roasted goose! Manbacon (who can be partially seen behind the bird) cooked the goose himself, following a great recipe by the Hairy Bikers. He also managed to rustle up succulent salt beef, as well as plenty of delicious apple and pork stuffing. 

£10 notes to wipe our greasy hands and lips on, because we're hedonists and filthy rich. You can't see it, but we also had a stack of £20 and £50 note-napkins. 
Wild mushroom dumplings in beetroot soup (above), as well as some bigos, plenty of cured pork products, some marinated herrings, and possibly some other stuff as well. 
The aftermath - empty vodka bottles, half-finished bowls of soups and stews, burnt-out candles, crumpled napkins and wrapping paper, plenty of half-eaten food, and one stained tablecloth. Our guests were sent away with boxes stuffed full of food. 

Saturday, 17 December 2011

Gingerbread Trials

Tried out a gingerbread recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook as part of my Christmas dinner preparations. It's pretty tasty and includes treacle (one of my favourite ingredients), but requires more ginger, in this opinion of this ginger-lover. I know gingerbread man is the traditional shape, but gingerbread llamas are pretty fantastic too, no? 
The gingerbread tribute to Munch's Scream and the slightly misformed Bat Signal were both produced by Manbacon himself, budding confectionery artiste extraordinaire. 


P.S. Not really related but does anyone have a good recipe for creme brulee? I'm a bit obsessed after my trip to Glasgow and a visit to the Two Fat Ladies restaurant. More on that soon.