Christmas Snow Globe
This pretty snow scene makes a lovely home-made present for a friend, relative or valued teacher. Not only does the willing recipient get a sweet home-made treat but also a beautiful jar to keep for ever. Gingerbread keeps for a long time, so make and decorate the biscuits well ahead of time and have one less thing to think about as Christmas draws closer.
You will need a variety of baked gingerbread shapes and some beautiful glass jars. This recipe uses Tala Copper Wire Clip Top jars, the Tala set of three Christmas tree cutters and the Tala set of five snowflake cutters. Before you get started take a moment to make sure your biscuits are small enough to fit inside your jar.
You will need
For the biscuits
Differently shaped gingerbread biscuits, including some baked onto cocktail sticks and kebab sticks
To decorate
red and white royal icing
ready-to-roll icing coloured green
granulated sugar
ribbon/decorations
Equipment
Tala set of three snowflake cutters
2 x Tala piping set with six nozzles
Large Tala Copper Wire Clip Top Jar
1.On a surface dusted with icing sugar, thinly roll out the green ready-to-roll icing and cut out as many shapes as you have tree-shaped biscuits. Use the same (cleaned and dried) cutters that you used to cut out the biscuits. Allow the shapes to dry slightly to make them easier to handle. Repeat with the white ready-to-roll icing for the snowflake biscuits.
2.Brush the surface of each biscuit with a very small amount of water and attached the ready-to-roll icing shapes to each biscuit, using your fingers to smooth the icing.
3.Drop the no4 writing tip into the piping bag and fill the bag with white royal icing. Pipe garlands, fairy lights and dots onto the trees. Repeat with a second piping bag filled with red royal icing. Then set the biscuits aside to dry fully.
4.Use the star plunger cutters to cut several tiny snowflakes. Attach a star to the centre of each biscuit snowflake and allow to dry.
5.Create 'falling' snowflakes on the inside of the jar by slightly dampening the surface of the snowflake and carefully attaching with your fingers. Complete the jar scene by pouring granulated sugar 'snow' into the bottom of the jar.
6.Position the Christmas trees, stars and snowflakes inside the jar and decorate with ribbon, Christmas as baubles, handmade tags and anything else you find festive.