Yuletide Cupcakery

When writing this blog post I had just heard an interesting item on the radio, it was about feeding a family and how in the current climate it is not so much about nutrition or ability, but cost.  Cost in terms of what is on offer and affordable, but more commonly, how much will it cost in terms of gas and electric.  Just to bake a cake it will require the use of utilities for water, drainage, mixing, baking and cleaning and so on. So with this in mind, I scrapped my plan and had a rethink...

With Yule, it is about celebrating energy and the time when the Oak King wins the battle again until Midsummer appears, the sun is reborn with the longer days of sunshine heralding the lifeforce around us – we need to make the most of our time and be out there enjoying it!  

To me Yule is also about family, spending time with my children and having fun.  I love baking and decorating cakes, but this is not always practical and children often want instant results. This is where practical hedgewytchery comes in! So, one thing we usually do at any occasion, sabbat, Esbat or other is ice biscuits. It’s perfect! Quick, cheap, simple and easy!

So what do you do?

·         Go to the cupboard, find a pack of biscuits or even a pack of fairy cakes if you have them.

·         Grab some icing sugar and add a little warm water to make icing.

·         Decorate the top of the biscuit, being Yule and wintertime try snow patterns and add other decorations you can find.

·         Then eat.

 Got a bit more time?

·         Bake some fairy cakes or biscuits

·         Prepare some butter icing and decorate with winter/Yuletide ornaments, use coloured icing too.

Want something a bit more elaborate?

·         Sandwich the biscuits together and roll in icing and sprinkles, ice the top and decorate.

You can have hours of fun coming up with different designs and  combinations.

Here’s what we have done:

Plain biscuits iced with Yule symbols – mistletoe, Holly for the Holly King and an Oak leaf for the Oak King.  All I used was a packet of biscuits and some tubes of coloured icing. No baking, gas, electricity or water required. Total cost economy pack of biscuits – 35p, icing was already in the cupboard – free! Total time – 10 mins.

Now who’s going to make it to the kitchen first to find biscuits, icing and sprinkles.....

Check out the other posts at http://bookgirlinthekitchen.blogspot.com/2011/11/celebrate-yuletide-cupcakery.html

Enjoy!

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