Christmas is coming... - 4th advent Sunday

So here we are! It´s the last Sunday before Christmas: all the presents are under the tree, the family has reunited, all the decorations are done, the menu for our Christmas dinner is set, and the jolly atmosphere  is filling my apartment. 

Whilst I am blogging right now, I am watching Nigella´s Christmas Cooking on tv... WOW! I would love to be able to cook like she does. If you are still clueless for your Christmas feast, have a look at her blog.

Anyways, we are here now for the fourth and last recipe of my Xmas cookies: the gingerbread snow flakes. I must be honest with you. . . I´m not fond of gingerbread  ☺ so these cookies were for my neighbours, who really appreciated!

Ingredients: 

400 gr. plain flour

180 gr. butter

125 gr. brown sugar

1 egg

125 gr. honey

2 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

For the icing:

water

icing sugar

lemon juice

For the icing I don´t follow a particular quantities. I simply take a bowl, pour some icing sugar in it, a little little little bit of water and a couple of drops of lemon juice. Then I stir and according to the consistency of it I either add water or sugar. It doesn´t have too bee too thick nor too liquid.

Procedure:

1. Sift together the flour, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a large bowl and set aside. Put the butter and sugar in a freestanding electric mixer and cream on slow speed until light and fluffy. Turn the mixer up to medium speed and beat in the egg and honey. 
2. Turn the mixer back down to slow speed and slowly add the flour mixture a couple of tablespoons at a time, stopping often to scrape any unmixed ingredients from the side of the bowl. Once an even dough has formed, take it out of the mixer, divide into 3 and wrap each piece in cling film. Leave to rest for at least a couple of hours. 
3. When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 170°C. Take the dough out of the fridge and leave it to soften for about 10 minutes. Sprinkle a clean work surface with flour and roll out the dough to a thickness of about 4 mm. Cut out shapes with your cookie cutters. Arrange the cookies on the baking tray and bake in the preheated oven for about 10–15 minutes. 
4. Leave the cookies to cool slightly. If you want to use them simply as a decoration you can start decorating right away. If you also want to eat them I recommend you leave them overnight in a tupperware with two halves of an apple.

Enjoy ♥

Martina

P.S.: thank you dear followers!

Who is Santa?

You better watch out

You better not cry

Better not pout

I´m telling you why

Santa Claus is coming to town

He´s making a list

And checking it twice

He´s gonna find out who´s naughty and nice

Santa Claus is coming to town

Actually Santa is already at my house. I guess he just wanted to peek over my shoulder as I was baking this gingerbread house and probably he also wanted a bite of it. 

Guess who he is!

a) the real Santa!!! The one and only! WOW!

b) one of his elves trying to take advantage of his boss´s privileges

c) my silly brother with his silly xmas pyjamas 

If you want to try and make a gingerbread house all on your own from scratch I can recommend two recipes. I usually follow this recipe from Taste.com because it´s very simple and there are fewer ingredients compared to other recipes, but I also like the one of the Hummingbird Bakery in London (by the way I have both their cook books and they are full of amazing recipes! I really recommend them). If you only feel like having fun decorating you can also buy prepared gingerbread dough; it´s easy to find around this time of the year.

For the decorations I use royal icing and anything sweet and colourful I have in my kitchen, such as gumdrops, dragees, sprinkles, sugar pearls, jimmies, hearts, stars, and so on.

For the icing I don´t follow a particular recipe. I simply take a bowl, pour some icing sugar in it, a little little little bit of water and a couple of drops of lemon juice. Then I stir and according to the consistency of it I either add water or sugar. It doesn´t have too bee too thick nor too liquid otherwise the decorations won´t stick and your house will not glue together.

If you do everything right you will have so much fun and the result will surely be cool!

Enjoy ♥

Martina

P.S.: dear Anja, Sandra, and Kristi (giveaway winners) your personalised canvases are finished! Your parcels are also ready for shipping; I am going to the post office tomorrow morning. Congratulations again, have fun!

It´s beginning to look a lot like Christmas - 1st advent Sunday

Have you noticed the snow falling whilst you are reading this? And the lovely gingerbread man following you all over the blog? Yes, it´s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Today is the first Sunday of the Advent and I can finally feel the jolly atmosphere, which comes once a year. Just to get started I have made our Advent garland, decorated the Christmas tree, and baked cookies!!! Yes, lovely and tasty Christmas cookies; here´s the menu:

chocolate shortbread all shapes cookies

whole wheat shortbread stars with jam

whole wheat shortbread hearts dipped in chocolate

gingerbread snow flakes

Since there are 4 different types of cookies, I decided to post one recipe each Advent Sunday until Christmas. So here is the first one: chocolate shortbread all shapes cookies.

Ingredients: 

250 gr. butter

100 gr. flour

70 gr. sugar

3 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder

What to do:

Preheat the oven to 180°C. With an electric mixer, beat the butter until creamy. Then add the flour, the sugar, and the cocoa powder. Mix until combined and then chill the dough for 10 minutes in the refrigerator. Roll out the dough on a flat surface (with flour) about one centimetre thick and using a cookie cutter form your cookies. Put them on an oven dish and bake for 7-10 minutes. Let the cookies cool down, then sprinkle with powdered sugar, and enjoy!

♥ Martina ♥

P.S. don´t forget to enter the GIVEAWAY!

Santa's elf

I feel like an exhausted elf, I've been working all yesterday evening and this morning to bake and decorate these gingerbread cookies. I hope Santa likes them... 

My kitchen looked like a Christmas laboratory indeed: full of spices, silver pearls, coloured sprinkles, and sugar icing. But there's no better beginning for this Advent!

- 4 weeks to Xmas... I'm starting to feel the atmosphere.

Enjoy ♥

Martina