I haven’t blogged for the last couple of days (and I miss it). It seems like the silly season has set upon me all at once with 3 Christmas parties and 1 puppy party in a few days. In amongst all of that I have made apricot jam, plum sauce, gingerbread biscuits, spring cleaned a shed, fed a 3 month old and done normal mummy duties. I can’t cope.

My friend Anna (the one who teases me about my fudge making) had a 7 year old puppy party for her daughter Evie today. Anna painted puppy noses and whiskers on 10 little girls. They readily ate out of dog bowls (without hands) and ate doggy biscuits. Of course, although Anna thinks she is in the running for the ‘Bad mother of the year’ award, we didn’t really feed them doggy biscuits. They were just gingerbread.  It was very cute and the girls had lots of fun.

A long held tradition in my family (at least 40 years) was to take a gingerbread to school for birthdays. Gingerbread biscuits travel better than a cake and are a tad more heat resistant. Mum would make a giant gingerbread (the size of a biscuit tray) and ice it with our name and age. She said it was a Dutch custom, but somehow all of the Dutch people I meet know nothing about it.

We would trundle off to school with our gingerbread and share it. Most people enjoy de-limbing a giant gingerbread man. Strange really. This gingerbread recipe is packed with flavour (of course) and I love it so much I couldn’t not share it with you. If I taste other gingerbreads I usually end up feeling dissatisfied, it’s not worth it really. I guess it all comes down to what you are familiar with.

I hope you enjoy this one!