Baking for Christmas-2nd day-Part 2

Sze-En waited like... forrrrreverrrrr before I allowed her to make the gingerbread cookies. The plan was to make the gingerbread dough, chilled it in the refrigerator for 3 hours and while waiting, we could do the pineapple tarts. We started at about 2pm. I made the gingerbread dough while Rachel and Minch made the tart's pastry. My father's siblings came to visit my grandmother so my mom had to entertain them.

We advised Sze-En to take a 3-hour nap so that she won't be cranky at night. She didn't want to sleep and promised not to be cranky.

After making the gingerbread dough, I started making the dough for cranberry chocolate cookies. Then I helped with the pineapple tarts.

At 6pm, I told Sze-En that we could start on cutting out the gingerbread man.We only started 1 hour after that. Poor Sze-En. Rachel helped her with the cutouts while I measured and baked the walls and roof for the gingerbread house.

I was so tired after all the baking. I had sore throat and my left eye was a bit swollen due to the heatiness (the word heaty is only used in Malaysia) of the body. At about 8.3opm I asked Rachel to help me with decorating the gingerbread house. I forgot we had to have long biscuit sticks to hold the house up. Rachel went out to look for the biscuit but couldn't find it. She made do with rectangular biscuits instead.

Rachel and I started with 2 walls first and we used royal icing (Rachel made it) to glue them together. While fixing the 3 wall, I suddenly realized that maybe Esther would like to take some pictures of the construction of the house. She just came back from a party and started decorating the gingerbread cutouts as soon as she entered the kitchen. I called her and she came .... not only to take pictures but also to help. She took over the piping almost immediately (Older sister's privilege. She probably thought that she could do better than us.. haha.. but we gladly gave her the piping thingy).

By now I was zombified. I didn't contribute much to the decoration of the house. The table was full of icing bits and what I did most of the time was to wipe them away.

Sze-En and Mae-Z (Mae-Z came at 8pm) helped with the coloured marshmallows. At 11.15pm all I wanted to do was to go home and sleep. I left my sisters to continue with the decoration of the house. By this time they were putting small marshmallows on the rooftop.

The next day Rachel called to say that my mom and Esther were cranky after I left. My mom complained of the icing bits all over the place and wasn't pleased that we intended to leave the gingerbread house at the place. Esther said that she would bring it back to her house. Then my mom said that it was okay to leave it where it was. ...well... that's the gist of the argument but I think there's more to it.

Maybe, if there's a next time, I will do it in Esther's house or my house!!. :)

I will probably post a picture of the finished gingerbread house.