Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend

2Scratters

Right I've found the culprits!!!!!

 All here in the lovely (Ahem!) group.

There was some chatting about Lebucken. I'd never even heard of it even though am a fan of Stollen and marzipan and had enjoyed reading along. I had dragged DH along we had purchased our real tree and were on a tootle back home and I needed to pop into Lidl as needed some chocolate as part of a present. So 30 odd pounds later along with a bag of the said Lebkucken...... DH not fond of them where as me??? it's got chocolate that is dark, some ginger and I am all in. Deliciousness. Fortunately I can leave dark chocolate in the fridge for days so it is a healthier option too, so a win win. As a sweet tooth person a decision for next year will be a thoughtful purchase of only dark chocolate as I really can eat any   

2 Scratters xx

foxgloves

@2Scratters - Yes, I like lebkuchen too. Used to have to visit a deli to get them pre-the arrival of the cheap German supermarket chains. They are very Christmassy & seem as though they ought to be fairly low in fat (though I don't know if they are).
F

foxgloves

Hello my little Christmas puddings,
A useful day today but not without an incident, onto which I will come in a moment.
Budget-friendly activity:
*Changed bed linen & did 2 loads of laundry now gently drying on the heated airer.
*Entered a competition.
*Did 3 surveys.
*Rounded up containers for re-filling at the eco shop tomorrow.
*Mr F mended the printer & whizzed around wielding the triangular-finned dust sucker.
*Baked a granary loaf.
*Checked salary (a week early) had arrived in our bank account. All present & correct.
*Cancelled Netty's Flicks & subscribed to another streaming service to enable watching a couple of series we want to see. A saving of £6 per month & we will swap again when we have exhausted what we want to see.
*Did just the quickest update of December's grocery budget. I think I am going to be able to roll about £60 over into January. Will check the figures properly when I get back from town tomorrow.
*Iced both Christmas cakes......& thereby hangs the annoying incident.
Remember we were discussing rolling pins earlier this week & I said we have a nice marble one which Mr F brought with him when he moved in with me 24 years ago? Well, I'd got everything out ready for decorating the first cake & had just made a start on rolling out the fondant icing, when the rolling pin rolled off the worktop, crashed onto the quarry tiles & smashed! It made such a noise I squealed. Marble is very hard, but also heavy & the old fashioned terracotta quarry tiles we have on our kitchen floor are very unforgiving. Nothing survives a fall onto those, including earlier this year, Mr F's phone. The marble part broke in half, flaking bits of sharp marble flake & dust everywhere, the metal rod inside buckled & both wooden handles sheared in two. You wouldn't have thought a broken rolling pin could be so stupidly dramatic! Mr F offered to drive across town & buy a new one from Waitbloom. Thankfully they had some in stock so I could just foil my icing & vacuum up the detritus until he got back. 
The curious thing was that Soot, who appeared on the scene shortly afterwards, seemed utterly convinced that the smashed rolling pin incident was somehow a precursor to him getting his lunch early, which as I told him, it absolutely wasn't, but it didn't stop him going into full biscuit-pester mode, so I had the starving furred wraith act to contend with too.
I took a photo of one of my cakes - I did intend to show you the other one too, but forgot & packed it away in its carrier in the pantry, but I will post the photo of the other one as I want to show how easy it is (rolling pin dramas aside) to decorate a Christmas cake without any proper tools or expensive kit.
Bear with me & I will get it on.
F x

foxgloves

Right, so this is the smaller of my Christmas cakes, which is the one from the WI Christmas cookbook & is the one I bake for us every year. Although I like doing crafts & am quite creative, I am not artistic. I can't draw & I have never felt sufficiently confident to try modelling my own cake decorations from fondant. So guess what my default decorating gizmos of choice are? Yes, once again, it's my trusty collection of biscuit cutters! I have already used these this month for making those savoury star biscuits & Christmas tree gift tags, but they are also really useful for cake decorating. I'd already marzipanned the cake, eaten the trimmings (I adore the stuff!) & so only needed very slightly to dampen it today so that the icing would stick propery. I rolled out the fondant (1 x 500g pack)to get as smooth a plain base as I could manage....I just use a sharp knife to trim away the surplus, my Great Great Aunt's old palette knife for pressing the icing in neatly at the lower edge, then clean hands with the lightest dusting of icing sugar mixed with a teensy pinch of cornflour to smooth it all over. 
The decorations are just stamped out from the surplus icing with festive cutters. For this cake, I used my bell cutter plus a tiny angel one which my sister gave me because she didn't want it. The shapes are stuck on with the tiniest amount of water icing which I make up & have ready in a ramekin & the silver balls are stuck on in the same way. The red ribbon is one of several I salvaged from some crackers a few Christmasses ago as they seemed too nice to throw away. The wide silver ribbon around the edge is from that roll of ribbon I found hiding at the bottom of my wrapping stash. It provided sufficient to go around this cake, the other bigger one, which is my contribution towards provisions while we are away, also enough to do two further Christmas cakes plus next year's front door wreath. I think that is good for just £1.
I have used exactly the same method on the other cake. It's a larger, square one as has a lot more folk to feed. It's plain white icing like this one, but for the decoration, I used 2 sizes of star cutters to make a drift of stars diagonally across the cake, then I've added 2 reindeers (little models) towards one corner. Btw, despite my comment this morning, both reindeer were in possession of all their limbs, it was the antlers which had fallen off. I was able to fix them back on again. They are not at quite such a jaunty angle as I needed to be able to fit the cake carrier lid over them so if anyone mentions their less than proud antlers, I will just say that it's no longer the rutting season!
I know with all the old-style talent skulling around on these diaries that there will be much more skilled cake decorators around than I, but I wanted to show that it is not difficult to turn out a reasonably decent effort without any proper kit apart from a box of biscuit cutters. 
There was a very small amount of fondant icing left. As usual, I kneaded some peppermint essence into it & made half a dozen peppermint creams for Mr F - he says they taste like those old fashioned Clarnico mint creams he used to like as a child....I don't know if they do or not, am just happier not to put food in the bin!
Well, m'dears, that's quite enough yakk from me for one day. Enjoy your evenings. Mr F's cooking night & I must admit I am intending to sink into the sofa & do sweet b all!
F x

joedenise

That's lovely @foxgloves.  Do you have a little angel cutter as those look delightful.  It's simple but very effective much nicer than an overdecorated cake!

Thanks for posting.

DawnW

That looks beautiful Foxgloves!

rtandon27

Gorgeous as always FG! - Simple and effective patterning! - So sorry about the casualty

badmemory

That cake is perfect.  So sorry to hear about the rolling pin though.

PennysIntoPounds

That is absolutely beautiful @foxgloves

Eek to the rolling pin, and strokes to poor old Soot being once again cruelly deprived of treats to get over his 'trauma' 😁

Blackcats

Beautiful cake - you are so talented.