Disco Divas.....made from gingerbread!

So, Peter is home.  Hoorah.  He was a little jetlagged but that didn't stop Isobel waking him up every few minutes such was the excitement!  There I was, entertaining her with trips to climbing frames and doing craft and baking....but no - she just wanted her daddy - I mean, all he does is take her to Tool Station or the Car Wash! (ok, I jest, he is very good really).

Anyway, after Mrs WP gave birth to the lovely Daniel on Thursday, Isobel and I decided to have a go at testing out a few more lovely Lakeland purchases.  In addition to the cake release (see previous blog), I had also purchased a baking genius tray and some russian doll cutters.  

I was quite excited by my new baking tray - my old ones are knackered due to putting them in the dishwasher (I didn't read the instructions properly) so this new one promised to be non stick and dishwasher proof!  As for the dollies, everyone loves a Russian Doll and I have thought about all the various benefits of these cutters which I thought were great!  More on that below.  In the meantime, Isobel and I decided to make gingerbread Russian Dolls.  We used Delia's gingerbread recipe which I won't repeat here as it's all on her site - http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/sweet/gingerbread-men.html

We rolled out the dough with our lovely Joseph Joseph rolling pin and one of the first exciting things about the cutters was that because they nest inside each other, you can make a lot of cookies as they fit well together and the small ones can easily be squeezed in those difficult bits of dough you sometimes have left:

Then it was into the oven for 13 minutes to cook them.  The big test came when we took the biscuits off - they literally slid off the baking tray and left only little oily marks where they had been:

So, all in all I was quite pleased with my baking tray and will be testing it out again soon!

What did I think of the cutters?  Well, apart from the fact that they nest and therefore you can make lots of biscuits, I liked the fact that toddlers can make their own dollies and you end up with some smaller ones which are good for small people (and people on a diet) and larger ones that are good for adults.  Making gingerbread ones means that you don't need to add butter so they can be eaten by people with lactose intolerance and also they are good for christmas.  I also think that you could probably use them for a host of other cookies - perhaps father christmas, a snowman, penguins, etc etc.  But probably not Peppa Pig.