Recent Purchases - Christmas Craft Special

This year, I’ve decided to get creative and have a go at making some Christmas presents and decorations. Over the past few weeks, I have been planning what I’m going to do and I’m starting to get everything I need ready and organised. In the past, I’ve left things too late and its hard to get exactly what I need.

 

One of the things I love to do at Christmas is a nice bit of festive baking and this year I’m very excited to decorate lots of biscuits to give to my friends and family as they make great presents. I’ve bought a collection of Christmas cookie cutters from a fabulous seller on Ebay who has cutters for almost any occasion. If any of you are interested, their ebay shop can be seen here. The cutters all come beautifully individually wrapped in cute tissue paper.

 

 

From Top Left - Angel, Santa Face, Snowman, Mitten, Stocking, Toy Soilder, Wreath, Candy Cane, Bauble, Holly leaf, Snowflake, Bell, Bow, Christmas tree, Gingerbread Man.

There are so many ways in which you can package and wrap these biscuits which I will show you in future posts, including using lovely Christmas ribbons and cellophane and old jars/tins and boxes.

 

Ebay is the perfect place to buy lots of cheap ribbons and twines, wooden decorations, paints, felts, buttons and fabrics to make some lovely handmade gifts and decorations so I fully recommend taking a look and getting lots of inspiration!

 

Here is a little sneaky peak of some of what I have bought over the past few weeks. I will be bringing you a series of Handmade Christmas posts to hopefully inspire you to get creative this festive season!

 

Selection of Christmas ribbons from Ebay

Fabrics

Felt and buttons

 

Will you be making anything this Christmas?

 

Hannah xox

Children In Need Baking - Pudsey Bear Biscuits

This week I decided to do my bit for Children In Need and make these Pudsey Bear biscuits and buns to take into work to raise a bit of cash for this fantastic charity day.

 

I bought the lovely Pudsey Bear cookie cutter for just £2.29 from Lakelands, with £1 going to Children In Need.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve really got into baking over the last couple of months as I find it a perfect distraction from my thoughts and really helps me to relax when I’m feeling stressed, depressed and anxious. I just put some music on and bake! Everyone seems to love my cakes and bakes and this also helps to improve my confidence.

 

 

The biscuits went down a treat at work so I decided to share this very simple but delicious biscuit recipe with you. This recipe does make quite a lot of biscuits (around 24 Pudsey bears, which are quite large) so you can always half this recipe to make fewer.

 

 

 

 

Biscuit ingredients:

·        250g unsalted butter

·        250g golden caster sugar

·        2 free range eggs

·        ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

·        500g plain flour

·        1 tsp baking powder

 

For the decoration:

·        Yellow fondant icing (£1.49, Lakelands)

·        White fondant icing (£1.49, Lakelands)

·        Selection of cake decorating writing pens (I got mine from Asda but you can get them from pretty much any cake decorating shop or supermarket)

·        1 teaspoon of apricot jam mixed with a few drops of hot water (to make a paste to stick the fondant icing to the biscuit)

 

Method:

·        Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract.

·        Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture and work into a dough using floured hands.

·        On a floured surface, knead the mixture into a ball and divide into 2 portions. Wrap each portion into cling film and put in the fridge. Leave for at least 1 hour.

·        Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3 and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

·        Roll the dough on a lightly floured surface and using cutters, cut shapes out and place them onto the baking tray. Make sure to leave a gap in between each biscuit because they may spread slightly whilst baking.

·        Bake for 12-15 minutes until they are starting to go golden.

·        Once cool, it is time to let your imagination run wild and decorate to your hearts content. This is my favourite bit!

·        Mix the apricot jam with warm water.

·        Dust a surface with icing sugar and roll out the fondant icing. Using the same cutter as the biscuits, cut out shapes in the icing. Brush the biscuits with the apricot jam and stick the icing shapes onto the biscuit. I then outlined each biscuit with black writing icing and used white fondant icing as Pudseys bandage. I decorated the bandage with the other coloured writing icing.

 

Also, I thought I'd share with you the halloween biscuits I made a few weeks ago using the same recipe.

Hope you enjoyed this post and I have inspired you to bake!

Hannah xox
 

 

Handmade Shoe and Handbag Gingerbread Biscuits



For Christmas, I was given this amazing cookie cutter set which contains handbag and shoe cutters.  I think this set was originally bought from Sainsbury’s but I have found this seller on ebay who is selling very similar individual cutters.

I really enjoy baking (despite it been terrible for my new years get fit and eat healthier regime!) and trying out new recipes for biscuits and cakes. I find it really relaxing after a stressful day. I made this batch of biscuits to take into my work, so I won’t be able to just sit at home and eat them all myself, however tempting it is!

This is a very simple but very delicious recipe for gingerbread biscuits which look great when decorated too. This recipe is one the best recipes I have found for gingerbread – they really are yummy!

Makes: Approximately 20 biscuits depending on the cutters that you use

Ingredients

• 350g plain flour plus a little extra for rolling out
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 125g softened butter
• 175g light soft brown sugar
• 1 free range egg
• 4 tbsp golden syrup

To decorate:

• Writing icing
• Selection of cake decorations

Method

1)    Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

2)    Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon into a large mixing bowl. Add the softened butter and mix together until the mixture looks a little bit like breadcrumbs. Pour in the sugar.

3)    In a separate bowl, beat the egg and golden syrup together. Add this to the rest of the mixture and pulse until the mixture clumps together.

4)    Lightly dust a clean surface with flour and knead the mixture until smooth and wrap it in cling film. Leave to chill in the fridge for about 15 minutes.

5)    Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface until it measures about 0.5cm. Using cutters cut out the shapes and place them on a baking tray. Make sure to leave a gap in between each one because they will spread when cooking. You may need to cook them in separate batches if you run out of space on the baking tray.

6)    Bake the biscuits for 12-15 until they are lightly golden brown. Once they are out of the oven, leave to cool on the tray for about 10 minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

7)     When cooled decorate with the writing icing and cake decorations to however you desire!

Decoration

There are so many different and amazing ways that you can decorate your biscuits.

To decorate mine I used:

• Pink and white pearls – 84p from Asda
• Coloured chocolate beads - 84p from Asda
• White chocolate stars – 84p from Asda
• Pink Sugar glimmer – 84p from Asda
• Pink and white writing icing

I decorated mine really simply because i didn't want to take away from the gingerbread taste but I found these amazing decorated shoe and handbag cookies on the internet when I was researching how to decorate them. Don't they look amazing - almost too good to eat!

Images from Google

Do you enjoy baking? What are your favourite recipes? 

xo Hannah xo