She’s Back, The beautiful Lucy George has gone all out this week and mixed things up a little, if gingerbread houses weren’t already cool enough this one takes it to a new level; I present to you “The Gingerbread Nativity”

Now that it’s officially ChristmasI decided I would try out a gingerbread house for the first time; the first of many Christmas bakes I have planned! And even though Gingerbread houses are very festive in themselves, I got a bit over excited this week and wanted to up the Christmas ante even more.

I decided that rather than just making a standard gingerbread house with a snowy roof and jelly tots stuck here there and everywhere, I would make it into something new – and low and behold the gingerbread nativity was created!

It didn’t take much technical skill to do this one, you just need time and lots of patience as there are a lot of fiddly bits to do!

The Stable

Creating the ‘stable’ was simple enough, I just got the different pieces out and stuck them together using icing – it holds better when it’s quite stiff so try not to add too much water when you’re making this! I didn’t end up using the front panel of the house, or one of the roof panels, so that I could place our little figures inside the stable so the extra panels were my snacks to nibble on whilst construction was underway! I broke up some shredded wheat for the floor of the stable to look like hay, and to make the house a little more stable-like I also stuck chocolate fingers around the edges to look like wooden slats. Then the stable was complete.

Now for the characters…

Each of the characters were made with a simple sponge inside. I then just covered them in royal icing and made a few different colours for the different characters. I wasn’t really following any specific plan with this one, and I think the most important part to it really is just to enjoy it and be creative! Mary, Joseph and the Shepherds were all quite straightforward, it was the Wise Men that took the time but I thought they turned out pretty well! I used loads of different sweets and baking accessories to decorate the Wise men – Jelly Diamonds, hundreds and thousands, silver balls – anything I could get my hands on!

The star of the show- Jesus

I made baby Jesus’s manger using wafers that you get for ice cream and just cut them into two rectangles and two smaller triangles, and then just stuck them together again with the icing. I just filled this with some of the shredded wheat and made a tiny baby Jesus out of sponge and then covered him in royal icing too.

So, overall, no real skill involved but really fun to make and it went down SO well! I have been inspired by a certain programme we all know and love, ‘The Great British Bake Off’, to attempt another Gingerbread House, but this time to bake and construct it all myself.

I’m thinking maybe a Gingerbread Hogwarts – too ambitious for a first attempt…?