Pain d'epices and Recycled Baubles

It was Lilo's playgroup Christmas party today, so I thought we would bring something baked to contribute. This morning, Ju and I made a "pain d'epices", which is a French spiced honey cake. Although it translates literally as spice bread, it is not the same as gingerbread and it has its roots in China, from where it was brought over in the Middle Ages. It is also a cousin of German Lebkuchen. We used to eat this a lot for snack time as children and I have never really associated it with Christmas time, but it contains all the usual spices. I adapted the recipe from French recipe site marmiton to make it gluten-free.

Pain d'epices

- 250 g honey

- 250 g flour (I used Doves gluten-free plain flour)
- 100 g caster sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp ground anise
- 1 tsp grated nutmeg
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 2 eggs
- 50 ml milk

Pre-heat the oven at 160°C.

Heat up the honey in a saucepan until really runny and pour it into a bowl containing the flour, baking powder, sugar and spices. Mix well with a wooden spoon and gradually beat in 2 eggs and the vanilla extract, then add the lukewarm milk.

Ju stirs the cake mixture

Pour the mixture into a greased and floured loaf tin. Bake for 1 hour and turn out the cake when it has cooled down completely.

It keeps for one week wrapped in foil. 

Slice of delicious pain d'epices

It is delicious spread with butter or on its own and eating it takes me right back to childhood. The texture is slightly chewy and so moist, especially considering there is no fat in it. It is also deliciously sweet and spicy, a real taste of Christmas one can enjoy at any time of year. Luckily, even though it was appreciated at play group, competing cupcakes made by another mum meant there was some left over, so I took it home so Ju could try it after nursery.

Pain d'epices tasting

Santa and Elf Recycled Baubles

In previous years, we have made a footprint ceramic bauble at The Ceramic Experience and I have made various fabric baubles using polystyrene balls. On Day 1 we also made a string and glue ornament, which was pretty much a bauble, although not completely round. Baubles are definitely a must on any Christmas tree

String and glue ornament (top), fabric bauble (bottom left) and ceramic bauble (bottom right)

I have in the house coloured plastic balls from a ball pit that has been moved up to the attic, and I thought of a use for them today, which also allows us to complete another one of our Christmas countdown activity: to make a Christmas bauble. I started by putting a needle with thread through the top to ensure we could hang the bauble. 

Needle with thread through the top of the plastic ball

Then we took some felt and I cut a section from a circle so the boys could make hats for the tops of their baubles. We use Copydex to glue felt, seems to work quite well.

Ball, felt circle with section cut off and red marabou trim

Lilo wanted to make a Santa and Ju a little elf. Both boys glued their hats on and then decorated the bauble with trimmings of red marabou for Ju's elf's beard and cotton wool for the hat trim, bobble, and the beard. I helped Lilo stick some googly eyes and a black belt with a yellow buckle cut out of felt.

Ju gets gluing

Santa's eyes and beard

The boys couldn't wait to put their baubles in the tree. They are definitely getting the hang of this (!).

Ju's elf bauble

Lilo's santa bauble

Clever Christmas Cards

Oops, we still haven't sent any Christmas cards! That explains why you haven't received yours. Today, we're getting on the case and making our own cards. The personal touch means you can customize them to the person whom you are sending them to. You don't need much to make your own cards, but it helps if you saved last year's Christmas cards. Below are some examples of the cards we made. They aren't all there, and we've still got to make some, so I will probably update this page in the next few days.

Recycled cards

What we used:

• coloured card
• pretty shiny Christmas papers
• Old Christmas cards - cut out interesting motifs from them - I find that you can't easily re-use already handmade cards, although they can still be used for making present tags.
• snowflake hole puncher
• ribbon
• glue, scissors
• glitter glue, glitter
• sequins

Recycled cards Ju made this morning

More recycled cards

Snowflake cards

For the snowflake card at the top, I got instructions for making a snowflake from a great site, but unfortunately I didn't bookmark it (sorry!) so can't point you to it*. However, I have since found a page with patterns for making Star Wars snowflakes.... I know... My geeky friends will be getting those for Christmas. Anyway, cutting a weird pattern in a piece of paper that has been folded 6 times is a bit tricky for my 3 year old, so I did the cutting. Unfolding the paper to reveal the snowflake was quite a magical moment. We then glued the snowflake onto a card and made some snowflake holes using the hole puncher.

* [update: ...Or can't I? It turns out I had actually pinned it on my Christmas Craft Pinterest board so actually, here is this very well described tutorial on snowflakes, in case your friends aren't sci-fi geeks and you're looking for something a bit more traditional.]

For the next snowflake card, Ju cut snowflakes out using the snowflake hole puncher and glued them on to a card with some pretty paper and ribbon

Angel cards

We made these on Day 11 of our activity countdown, when we made our pretty snowy landscapes. Check out our blog entry on that day to see how we made them.

Right, and now, down to the write stuff...

Snowy Landscape and Angel Hand Print Card

Today was all about making simple Christmas collages. Christmas seems to be an endless source of crafty inspiration, probably because there is such a brilliant range of colours and shades (monochrome white or red/green, sparkle), shapes (round baubles and snowmen, triangular trees, hexagonal snowflakes, stars), sensations (fluffy snow, cold ice, spiky holly), smells (pine needles, cinnamon, anise, ginger)... Collages could involve any of these and, as abstract as they might be, one would always recognize the Christmas spirit in them. Our theme of the day was a snowy landscape. I mixed some PVA glue with white paint and a little water; I put on the table lots of silver glitter, some cotton wool and the cut-out snowflake shapes we had left over from the Craft Workshop last Saturday.

I started painting Lilo's hand so he could make some hand prints on some black card paper. He enjoyed seeing the white impression of his hand on the black card, sliding his fingers in the paint and sprinkling everything with silver glitter.

Lilo painted his own hand as well and painted the paper using the brush too. He then explored the cotton wool and tried to shake it off his hands, where it had got stuck, as they were covered in the paint and glue mix.

Lilo paints his hand to make a hand print

 Some snowflake shapes were placed onto the landscape.

Lilo sticks some snowflakes onto his landscape

Glittery blizzard

Sticky hands and cotton wool

A finished snowy landscape... brrrr!

Some of the hand prints looked so dainty, all covered in silver glitter, that I cut them out and made them into snow angels, by sticking a little bit of cotton wool at the top of the picture for hair. Lilo glued them on some blue card and we will use these for some of our Christmas cards (still to be sent!!!).

Lilo puts glue on the back of the cut-out angel hand print

Lilo's angel hand print card