Wednesday 16 December 2009

"Just looking at it is giving me diabetes"

Spending an evening indoors trying to enter into the spirit of the holiday season was worth missing one running session. As the sunset played out a candy-floss finale to a bitterly cold day we hunkered down in the kitchen and cracked open some Christmas beer and a indulged in the traditional tradition of decorating a gingerbread house.

First task was repairing the broken prefabricated gingerbread sections that didn't make it back from the supermarket in one piece. What better confectionary cement to use than caramel...

..and if you've made a batch of caramel then why not use it to build the whole house?

On the wall that faced the prevailing winds I decided that the gingerbread could do with some reinforcing so I opted for a stone-wall of peanut M&Ms held together with icing.

The finished house with gingerbread bouncers, peanut M&M rockery in the garden, Non-Stop solar panels on the roof and a dusting of icing sugar powder snow. Eagle-eyed readers will also notice the Seigdamer. That's right, they like jelly babies but they're jelly women with jelly boobs...

My teeth hurt just looking at these photos.

7 comments:

kate said...

sweet, sweet caaaaandeeeey.....

looks like someone's already wearing their christmas jumper ;)

Joe Newton said...

Kate - I'm not sure I'm going to get my calorie intake/expenditure account into the black any time soon. The peanut M&Ms came in a 1kg bag...

...and that isn't a Christmas jumper, big woolly jumpers is how we roll in Norway :-)

jumbly said...

Awesome! I admire your candymasonary skills.

Nielsen Brown said...

We used melted sugar to stick the gingerbread house together, fortunately I was not required to eat it.

Martin Rye said...

Yum. Norway life is looking better every time I check your blog :)

Joe Newton said...

Roger - I wasn't paying close attention but I think the caramel we used to stick the whole thing together was basically melted sugar. I have been known to acquire a sweet tooth every now and then, usually in cold weather so I can't see the house lasting long after Christmas.

Martin - life got even better this weekend with about 18 inches of snow dropping on Saturday :-)

Joe Newton said...

Jumbly - thank you, maybe next year they'll hire me to help construct the gingerbread city the build every year in the city centre?...