Mixing it up

So, although I got married well over a year ago, we had to keep many of our presents in storage in my parents' shed for a year, as our previous flat was too small to contain them. Once we'd moved house we unpacked them all - wow, it was like Christmas morning.

All sorts of goodies were in there, but the one I want to tell you about is very simple and classic. An old school, traditional mixing bowl. Ceramic, white glaze on the inside, biscuit-brown glaze on the outside. Enormous.

It was given to me by a very close friend who totally gets my obsession with baking, so I'm going to send her a link to this post and let her know that in the last fortnight alone that bowl has been the receptacle for two Christmas puddings, homemade ginger beer, ginger bread biscuit dough and marzipan for the Christmas cake. I love using it. It's absolutely massive and just like the one my mum has which I always used to love using (though mine is bigger!). I'm looking forward to all the other tasty things it's going to help me make.

All hail the mixing bowl of greatness!

Christmas Cookies

So, I felt the sudden urge to make some Christmas cookies the day before yesterday, but very surprisingly my guru, Katie Stewart, had nothing to say on the matter. Not a ginger biscuit to bless myself with.

I now have a new queen. Her Highness, Peggy Porschen. I have a beautiful copy of Peggy's Party Cakes book. Now, whilst her decorative strategies are a little too high falutin for day to day cooking, but at the beginning of her book she has a whole bunch of 'basics' recipes. A basic sponge (yeah, cos I haven't memorised the ingredients proportions for that one), basic sugar cookies, and -thank you god - basic gingerbread cookies! Hurrah!

So I made a huge batch and it's chilling in the 'fridge, just waiting for me to roll it out and bake it. Apparently the cookies can last for up to a month if kept in a foil package or an airtight container. Well that's a winning formula if you ask me. Unfortunately I have no Christmas cookie shapes, just a 'plane, a helicopter, a rocket and a heart... Oh well, I'll start out with those and buy a star, a snowflake, a Christmas tree, etc, at a later date. I'm sure nobody really minds what shape they are as long as they taste good, right? :-D