Hobbits, Richard Armitage, and baking :D

Hello, people!

The Hobbit film was released last Thursday, and I have already seen it twice in the cinema since then. I fully intend on watching it at least another three times before they stop showing it, after which I will wait for the DVD to come out so that I may continue to watch whenever I feel like it. I'm a huge fan of Richard Armitage, ever since his smoldering portrayal of John Thornton in BBC's North & South (like hello, who cares about Pride and Prejudice when you have North & South in your hands??), so despite my earlier skepticism at him being a dwarf... I have to say that mmmmmm baby, you do you SO well! Thorin, wow, I'm a believer, I will follow you to the gates of hell, you sexy little beast.

So, besides my obvious Dwarflust, the other new (yet not so new) thing is that I was finally allowed to publish my pictures from Hobbiton, Middle Earth (lol just kidding, y'all know it's in Matamata) which I took LAST December! I have, since Thursday, been on a bit of a SFF, epic, world building, magical, nerd fiesta bonanza! Which I make no apologies for. 

I also threw this little baby into the mix: Gingerbread Hobbit Hole. It's been done and it's been perfected, by countless other Tolkien fans, but nothing wrong with having a few Hobbit Holes around the Shire to keep the place cheerful, innit? I plan on making a few more and stacking them around to make a proper edible Hobbiton. Let's see how much time I have on my hands in the coming week though.

So here you go, my Gingerbread Hobbit Hole, lemme tell you how I did it, with really poorly taken iPhone pictures and incomplete narrative:

First, a sketch was hastily drawn. This Hobbit Hole is loosely based on the one I saw in Hobbiton, which is now my profile picture on le Facewaste. 

See what I mean by incomplete narrative? I forgot to take pictures of the actual cutouts I had painstakingly measured and used as stencils. Sigh, anyway, then I used the alleged cutouts to make the individual parts. If you click on the pictures, you'll see that the roof and cornice/decorative/beams (???) pieces were scratched to look like wood. My 11-year old brother did this for me with a toothpick. Sweet, eh? (Le Gingerbread recipe)

The windows were slightly trickier, as I was making things up as I went along. What I did was to cut out the circle with a small cookie cutter, then slice up the cut out portion and put the bars back in. It was weird. 

Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of the cake I had used to shape the hill behind the Hobbit Hole facade (mainly cos it looked fug and messy). What I'd basically done was to bake two batches of this Beetroot Chocolate cake (I chose to use this recipe as it's my favourite chocolate cake recipe, and also because it produces a very moist and therefore mold-able cake), then cut them up into halves and quarters, stacked them on top and next to each other with raspberry preserve, filled out gaps and holes with crumbs, and then covered the entire thing in a crumb coat of cream cheese frosting.

The gingerbread pieces had first been attached to each other with royal icing, but then was fixed onto the "hill" with more cream cheese frosting. I then piped cream cheese frosting over and around the hill using this Ateco grass tip. I also scattered some little sugar decorative balls around to look like wild flowers (which I'm just slightly in love with, I mean... look at how sweet they look in the grass!).

Basically everything is edible, but... how can I cut into my precious? Is it tasty? Is it scruuumptious, precious?

Okay! I'm off to watch The Hobbit AGAIN! Love, Nabs

P.S. I'm also gonna either take better pictures of this Hobbit Hole, or just make new ones.

Gingerbread Muffins

Tis the season to eat plenty
Trallalalallaaaa lalalallaah

I've been stretching myself a bit thin this past month, what with a full time job, side baking business, choir rehearsals, and now the holiday season is fast approaching, which means deadlines and holiday baking! We're also flying back to Miri (beautiful seaside town in Sarawak, Borneo, where I spent the first seven years of my life) over Christmas to spend time with family and friends for a special occasion (can't say yet!).

Tonight, however, is the final rehearsal for the choir's Christmas show (check it) which consists of one (1) caroling session in Publika (come by and bring me a Boost juice!), and two (almost) back-to-back full concerts almost across town. I thought to bring some treats for the group before we break up for the holidays, just as a "thank you for being so fun over the past few months" gift.

So here's the recipe (for what would have been gingerbread cupcakes... but I didn't feel like adding more sugar).

Gingerbread Muffins
Yield: 12 standard sized muffins

• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1/2 cup molasses
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 cup boiling water

1. Preheat oven to 180C and lay out muffin liners
2. Beat the canola oil, caster sugar, and molasses until combined, then add in the egg and continue beating until incorporated
3. Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, salt, and ground cloves in a medium sized bowl and add to the liquid mixture. Beat until incorporated, then slowly trickle in the hot water. Continue beating for about another minute or two then divide between the muffin liners
4. Lower the heat to 165C, and bake for 35 minutes or until a skewer poked through an angle comes out clean
5. Eat!