GABFEST "ALL THINGS CHRISTMAS" for December, 2014

  • While this huge thing was flapping about in my wisteria i spotted a sheep on her back and thought she was dead. I climbed over the fence and luckily was still alive!and pulled her up by her wool! She was pregnant :) She ran off to the rest of the flock! I ripped the backside out of my trousers on barbed wire fence :( Rutherfords lamb yet to be born!

  • Willow, such excitement!! Am I allowed to laugh? Don't want to hurt your feelings. :)  Too bad about the trousers.  Hope they were just an old everyday-around-the-house pair'

    I will hold this thread open until you post your cake OR until you tell us that it cannot be done.

  • June you are allowed to laugh and the were my old round the house trousers!

  •  Good evening all hopefully here is a pic of my uniced cake! That will come later!

  • Very nice Willow!  Has anyone noticed that they all look pretty much alike before decorations..  A lovely cake with fruit showing through.  But I expect they all taste quite differently.  What a treat it would be to actually sample each one!

  • Story of making a Christmas cake.  Some have said my cake decorations look like a lot of work.  A bit of effort, but no work, just a lot of fun.

    I soaked two generous cups of raisins in enough brandy to cover overnight, Then drained away the excess brandy back into the bottle it came from.  The now drunken raisins had soaked up about half the brandy.  

    For my cake I decided that this year I did not want all drunken raisins, so I measured out one cup and added another cup of regular raisins and proceeded with the cake following the usual directions.

    Having no idea how to decorate I went shopping for inspiration.  Exploring the craft isles of a department store I found a rack of many small colorful items.  I selected 3 packages: one with 3 ocean waves, one with a palm tree, and one a collection of sparkly, colorful disks, which I would use to decorate the palm tree.  I now had my theme.  :)    

  • Willow - Looks a very good rich fruit cake.

    We are only a third through eating ours and having some now with Prosecco and a silverside beef sandwich so you have plenty of catch up time. The beef at New Year has done us a roast dinner for three days and a sandwich. The Prosecco is good :).

  • Hello Keith, sounds delicious!

    To continue:  My favorite icing for a Boiled Spice Cake is a sugar glaze and I planned to use that.  However it simply was too transparent to give the color I needed.  So a trip to the corner Kroger for white icing.  With ordinary food coloring I tinted some green for grass & some blue for water.

    Making one corner of the cake blue and the other green, it was now ready for the beach.  Light brown sugar made a quick and easy sandy beach. Now add the three dimentional church which I have had for several years and have used on other cakes. The other decorations are flat so I used toothpicks to hold them up.  Voila! No work, just fun.

    Unfortunately, the work followed, because then came the cleanup.  :(

  • Happy New Year to all Gabbers!  June (and Everyone!), thanks for this lovely thread--I have thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and seeing the lovely pics of trees and of Apollo, etc., drooling over your cakes and listening to the music.  Apologies that I could not contribute, but we were away for a week over Christmas and I could not get an internet connection, so have only been catching up since we returned.

    Bente, Please could you list the names of the biscuits you photographed for us?  As for German Christmas music, I love 'O du Froehliche'(apologies if the spelling is incorrect, Bente!).

    Kind regards, Ann

  • June I take it the corner Kroger is your equivalent of your corner shop? I imagine a shop like "Open All Hours" a comedy based on a corner shop in this country! Our corner shops are threatened by the increase in huge supermarkets against who they cannot compete. We cherish our local corner shops who are friendly and always ready for a chat!