I had big plans for December and like so much of the year before it. I blinked and all the time was gone. How many plans have I made this year that have had to be "adjusted" or forgotten due to purely just lack of time. I have neglected my blog too many times to remember recently, something that I hoped to improve this month with so many bloggers participating in Blogmas. Sadly the month is half gone and I only have now had a chance to sit down with my computer, regret free and type.
Enough babble though. Let's get to something more exciting.
Christmas.
Snowmen.
It's so blooming hot at the moment.
Melted snowmen.
In a recent fit of Christmas excitement I found this photo of the cutest melted snowmen on Pinterest. I felt that they were so appropriate for a summer Christmas where the idea of snow is almost unbelievable. The best thing about them was the simplicity of the idea and yet the results can be so very cute and effective. So I decided to give them a try and share my recipe and thoughts.
As I said before everything about these snowmen is so simple to obtain and make. I made my own biscuits from a simple vanilla cookie recipe that I'll share below but if you were short on time any plain round biscuit could be used.
A single batch of large round vanilla cookies or a suitable biscuit substitute
1 1/2 cups of icing powder
1/4 cup water
12 marshmallows
Decorating pens in chosen colours. This is so much easier than making up multiple piping bags of icing.
To make the biscuits you'll need:
225g plain flower
150g butter, cubed
125g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
This is probably the simplest recipe I've ever encountered. You start by crumbing the butter and flour together with your fingertips in a medium bowl until you have the consistencey of fine breadcrumbs.
Then all that's left to do is add the extract and sugar and knead gently together until all the mixture is brought into a firm dough.
Roll this out on a lightly floured bench top to about 1cm thick and cut out with large round cutter.
Bake at 180°C for 10-15 minutes until lightly golden.
Remove from oven and allow to cool on tray first before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
The recipe is so remarkably straight forward and so far, foolproof (I've made 3 batches of this recipe this last week alone!)
Now, back to the actual snowmen.
Make up the icing by gradually adding water to the icing powder. Be sure to do this slowly to obtain a slightly runny mixture that's not too runny.
The trick to getting a really nice 'melt effect is to start by placing the icing on the centre of the biscuit and slowly spreading it out roughly across the biscuit, stopping before the edges. It should resemble a puddle and not be perfectly rounded along the edges.
Closer to one edge of the biscuit place a marshmallow to be the unmelted head.
Finally decorate with the icing pens by adding eyes, noses, twig arms and assorted scarves and accessories to personalise each snowmen.
I then packaged a couple of snowmen in a little cellophane bag and gave them as gifts to my dance teachers as a token of thanks for all their great work this year.
I honestly hope you get a chance to try these. They are so very effective and yummy!
Happy Baking and a Merry Christmas
xx
Caitlin
