Nightmare Man Icing Modelling

Hi, I was in a bit of a creative mood while I was waiting for my rose cupcakes too cool, and I had some icing spare and left over so I modelled out a Nightmare man; which turned out to be pretty cool, and really fun to make. So here it is! xx

Tip: When handling icing it makes it much easier if you have cold hands- so the icing is easier to handle.

Ingredients/ Equipment:

A small palm-sized ball of ready roll white icing
A small rectangular shape of light green icing which can fit proportionally onto the head.
6 small pea sized buttons made from royal red icing (flattened and indented)
2 small pea sized balls made from blue icing
Icing pens - Blue and Autumn Gold
2 smaller than pea sized balls, of white icing
A ball tool
A knife/ slicing tool
Edible glue
A paintbrush 

Method:

1.  Take the ball of white icing and the ball tool; with your fingers shape the ball a little more into a point at one end. So it looks like the structure of a face. Next take the ball tool and in the upper section of the face press the ball tool into the face to make eye sockets, repeat for the other eye, an equal distance apart.

2. Now take the blue icing balls and place into the sockets - with the ball tool press the blue flat into the sockets.

3. With the knife/ slicing tool run the blade at the base of the face and tilt it slightly to get the shape of a mouth. With the Autumn Gold icing pen, run the edible ink across the slit- so it looks like he has a golden mouth.

4. Take the two balls of white icing, and paint the back with the paintbrush and a small dab of edible glue. Place the balls glue down onto the now blue eye sockets and make the eye balls, now take the blue icing pen and make a small dot into each to make iris'.

5. For the last bit simply take one end of the rectangle shape, paint the end with edible glue, and stick to the base of the face to make his body. Make a line down the centre of the body to separate the sides in which you are now going to stick the buttons.

6. Take the buttons of red icing and paint the back of each one with the edible icing. Stick three on each side so its equal. ( see the first picture)

7. Finally pinch the middle of the face to a point to create a sharp nose.

Happy Baking xx Beth

Gingerbread house

 I needed a challenge to do with baking so I made this with my Mum and sister- we all had great fun doing it. I hope you all love this. I got this recipe from the Good Food website. Happy Baking :-D .

Ingredients for House:

250g unsalted butter
200g dark muscovado sugar
7tbsp golden syrup
600g plain flour
2 tsp bicarbonate soda
4 tsp ground ginger

Ingredients for decoration:

500g icing sugar
2 egg whites
2-3 packs of chocolate fingers
Generous selection of your own choice of sweets
few edible silver or gold balls

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Then melt the butter sugar and golden syrup in a medium sized pan.

2. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ground ginger into a large bowl, and add the butter mixture, mix well until it forms a stiff dough. If it won't come together add a splash of water. If it's then too wet add a sprinkling of flour.

3. Cut out the template for the ginger bread house. Go to Good food website at the top for this. Put a sheet of baking paper on your work surface. Roll out until around the thickness of two £1 coins cut out the shape from the different templates, then slide the gingerbread still on its baking paper onto a baking tray, repeat with all the other templates. Until you have 2 side walls, 2 roof panels and a back wall and a front wall.

4. I cut the remaining dough into gingerbread Christmas trees. Bake all the sections for around 12 minutes or until a little darker at the edges and firm and then cut around the shapes to give clean edges. Then leave all the sections to cool. Put the icing into a piping bag and then begin to assemble.

5. To assemble pipe generous lines of icing along all the edges of the shapes, except the roof panels and then attach all the remaining shapes together to form the shape of a house. Put a small cup in the center of your structure so far to support it. After a few hours to make sure your structure is dry put on the roof panels in the same process as before leave to completely set overnight.

6. To decorate place the chocolate fingers secured with icing along the roof and around the edges pipe icing. Then decorate the rest of your house your own way with assorted sweets.

7. Make it snow! Sieve icing sugar onto your house to create a snowy scene. I also put on the trees made from spare gingerbread on as well.

Enjoy ! Beth x