Does anyone eat gingerbread at any other time of the year? I am a huge fan of ginger, but it wouldn’t occur to me to make gingerbread for any occasion other than Christmas.

The gingerbread house was an annual tradition in our house. Rolling out the dough and carefully cutting it to size, I created windows using boiled sweets and shaped trees for the garden. It was a family activity although I must admit it was sometimes a little difficult to watch the children kneading the dough as if it were bread knowing that trying to eat the finished product could land one of us a visit to the dentist’s chair.

Once baked and assembled I was happy to let the children’s creativity flow, this often resulted in a house that had weathered a both a tornado and a blizzard, but it was our house and we loved it.

This week we made gingerbread biscuits and the feel of the dough and the smell from the oven brought it all back. It felt like Christmas in that kitchen.

We had a lot of fun decorating our biscuits, piping buttons and noses onto our gingerbread men and creating baubles for the trees.

Later we got to enjoy the biscuits with a glass of sherry and bit of Bing Crosby, it really is beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Have a wonderful Christmas from all here at Layston Grove