Pinterest vs. Reality

 

Hi there

 

Especially during Christmas time, I will use Pinterest a lot. For decorations, gift ideas and of course for baking and food ideas. And all of the things on Pinterest have one thing in common: they always look amazing. So, I asked myself the question “Would they also look this amazing, if I did them?”. I expect it to be a huge disaster. I mean I will try my hardest, but even if the look isn’t great, it probably will still be enjoyable?

 

 

This one is not only a delicious bake; it is also a pretty decoration. I am of course talking about gingerbread houses. To be honest, I tried this once or twice before but one time it didn’t stick together and fell apart and the other time, it wasn’t pretty at all. And as if this wouldn’t be hard enough, I think I will try and do a gingerbread green house. 

The first thing I tried was the gingerbread greenhouse. After the bake I was relieved that it kept its shape, I have tried to bake gingerbread before and it completely list its shape. But the process of putting it together was a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. At first the roof didn’t want to stay on, so in the end I caved and used toothpicks to keep it together. Surprisingly to make a greenhouse isn’t a lot more difficult because you just have to cut more windows and after baking glue in gelatin sheets as windows. I kind of like the look of it, because it seems more adult than a regular gingerbread house. Maybe because it hasn’t a lot of colors. To spice it up a bit, I created a sleigh using leftover gingerbread and two candy canes. For a finishing touch I sprinkled on some powdered sugar to imitate the snow. Overall, I am happyish with the end result but for next year I will try again and hope for a better result.

 

 

One thing I always wanted to try during Christmas time were royal icing biscuits. Especially the ones that have very intricate designs. I think I won’t have problems with the easier ones but the very detailed ones… I can already see the explosion of the piping bag over all the finished biscuits.  

The next thing I did were the royal icing biscuits. For the biscuits itself, I made sugar cookies and I really like the taste of them. But the dough was rather difficult to work with, because it was very sticky. I have to say that I definitely underestimated how much time it would need to prepare and mix all of the different colors of royal icing. But when everything was done, there was no stopping me. It was a lot more difficult than i thought, but I am pretty happy with the end result. It takes a bit of time to get used to it, but after 10 to 15 minutes you will get the hang of it. After about two hours I was done with the more intricate design and switched to more swirly designs. They worked especially well on stars. But I must say they look better than they taste, I’m not a fan if the taste of royal icing. But I will decorate cookies again next year that is for sure.

 

If you have been on Pinterest since 2014, you will have eventually stumbled across cake pops. I have tried them several times and not all of the times the outcome was a success. And as if normal cake pops wouldn't be hard enough, the Christmassy ones are on a whole other level of difficulty.

I have tried to make cake pops quite a few times (at least 7 times) but only one of these trys has been successful so far. So, I knew what I was getting myself into making these cake pops. Also, this was the last thing I made and after the other two didn’t turn out ideal, I decided to keep the decorations pretty simple. The baking part went well, mainly because I have a specific baking tray for cake pops. The next step of dipping the lollipop sticks first into chocolate and then into the cake pops was already more difficult. (That was because a bit of water got into the melted chocolate and all of it turned to the consistency of wet sand) The coating with chocolate wasn’t much easier because I had to pour over the chocolate with a spoon and therefore the coating was pretty irregular. For the decoration I cut up some candy canes and sprinkled them on top. They didn’t hold on great, but slid off because the chocolate was still runny. I can say this was the last time I did cake pops and I won‘t do them again next year.

 

 

 

One thing is for sure: for next year I will try out bakes that are easier and not only look but also taste good. And since this is our last blogpost before Christmas, I wish everyone who celebrates Christmas a Merry Christmas. 

 

Until then xx