Make Your Own Gingerbread House | Day 3 自製薑餅屋

The back of our gingerbread house

Dear readers, this is the last day!  I have to admit it, this little gingerbread house took longer to do (and a caused a bit of nervous hair tearing) than I thought it would...but what can I say, it was worth it.

There's nothing quite like a house made completely of candy and cookies, not when I was a little girl reading over and over again the fairytale of Hansel and Gretel and the little candy house they found nestled in the woods, and not even now when I'm all grown up and seen, well, lots of strange and wonderful things.  

When my little girl and I finally finished our little gingerbread house and it was sitting so pretty on our table...it was just the feeling of magic...I felt almost as if we were transported to that fairy forest, looking through the trees, eyes big with wonder, peeking at a house delightfully  and completely made of candy, with a wicked wee witch hiding inside...

Almond Nougat Candy

Okay, I seriously like nougat a lot...a very a lot.  It's so festive!  And yummy.  Every once in a while I will splurge on prettily wrapped bags of nougats to nibble on,  bags that empty way too quickly into the tummy of the nearest nougat addict.  (Umm...that would probably be me.)  

The problem I found was that I always wanted to eat a LOT of nougat, darnit that honey scented soft fluffy whiteness interspersed with the nutty crunch of roasted nuts makes it just simply irresistible and addictive.  So I figured if I wanted to eat a LOT of nougie maybe I should try to make some at home and pig out standing in the comfort of my own kitchen.  

But then I got discouraged cuz there was a lot of stuff in nougat making like sugar 'crack' stage and glucose syrup and so on and I thought, meh...this is too hard.  (I've been struggling with sugar work...more on that later.)  

But then...then I found a classic nougat recipe that was really simple and straightforward to make, only three ingredients! and a bit of time.  With this traditional recipe I made my own Almond Nougat Candy (just in time for wrapping up as gorgeous homemade Christmas gifts!  After I nosh my way through the first batch, that is...) and what can I say, it's soooo yummilicious!  Gosh darn it, this freshly made nougat, just soft enough to be deliciously chewy, really beats the socks off anything you can buy in the stores!

Christmas Sugar Cookies

A very very Merry Christmas to all!!  It's that wonderful time of the year again, time for the baking, decorating and eating of Christmas Sugar Cookies!  

Do you like my little girl's Santa Claus Cookie?  We're going to save this cute one to put out for Santa Claus when he comes by on Christmas Eve.  (Don't know how he's going to get into our tiny house!)  

These cookies are a great Xmas project to do with your kids cuz all kids love to draw and what better thing to draw on than a cookie you can eat!  My little girl and I had a blast making these decorated cookies in preparation for the holiday season and we figured out some great tips for the cookie decorating part that made it much, much easier for my little girl to work with the icing to decorate the cookies.

Christmas Sugar Cookies

This year for Christmas we made our first real sugar cookies, my daughter and I.  These Christmas Sugar Cookies were not perfect looking by any means, but looked adorable and tasted really great (not too sweet, just right!).  And most importantly, my little girl had a blast "helping mommy" with the all important task of painting the cookies.   These christmas sugar cookies are a great food project to do with kids because, as I discovered, they will look great no matter how they are painted!