Monday, December 17, 2007

Stop the Insanity!


Step...away...from...the icing....(Poor Mr. Bill and his candy cane, stuck to the wall with lightning bolts of icing excitement.)

Book Nerd had a birthday brunch/holiday decorating party. Blame the champagne mojitos at Park Slope Frenchy bistro Moutarde (on Fifth Ave and Carroll), but a small posse of bookish types ended up in the BN kitchen, making bourbon balls and Christmas/Chanukkah cookies, and assembling and decorating this little gingerbread house. OK, let's be honest: I contributed nothing useful to the bourbon ball/cookie endeavor, except for licking the chocolate bowl and cutting out a few dreidel shapes.

But the gingerbread house--oh, the joy! What soul can't be satisfied by a plastic pastry bag oozing royal icing and a bottle of glitter sprinkles? Left to my own devices, I would have buried in the whole house in a snowy avalanche of icing swags. More icing! More!! Luckily, though, BN eventually wrestled the bag away from me, a good thing.



This was a bit of a cheater's house, because the gingerbread pieces came already pre-baked and pre-cut, so all we had to do was stick them together and then get onto the fun part. Theinstructions on the kit said ridiculous things, like that you have to wait 4 hours between sticking on the roof and decorating the house. Made from meringue powder, water and tons of confectioners' sugar, the icing set nearly immediately into impenetrable cement, so we got on with the peppermint and gumdrop action ASAP.



You can also roll the icing into little balls and create a turban-wearing Sikh snowman, if you're so inclined. Next year, a satellite dish on the roof!



Truly, though, fun (and hot buttered rum) was had by all.



Music for Gingerbreading:

"Back Door Santa," Clarence Carter
"Do the Funky Penguin," Rufus Thomas
"Baby It's Cold Outside," Ann Margret
"Santa Baby," Eartha Kitt
"Santa's Back in Town," Elvis Presley

3 comments:

T. said...

That looks too good to eat.

Anonymous said...

this makes me so excited for next year...i didn't make a gingerbread house this season!!

Anonymous said...
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