With Flossie Crums the magic of Christmas starts early, with gingerbread cookie Christmas tree decorations, glittering marzipan and sparkling peppermint snowballs. And Christmas morning? Rudolf banana and Nutella muffins. Yum!
ello, I’m Flossie Crums, Royal Baker to the Fairies of Romolonia.
Royal Baker?! Yes, you see, it all started one day last summer; I decided to bake a cake and laid it out on a picnic rug in our garden, The fairies that live in our chestnut tree at 22 Maple Syrup Lane, tasted my “Very Impressive, especially tasty Chocolate cake” and gave a piece to their Queen. Next thing I know, I’m being minimised and whisked off to fairy land. (bonkers I know, but I promise you it’s true!)
You can read all my fairy adventures in the books that have been published (just visit www.flossiecrums.com for stockists).
So now, it’s almost Christmas and Billie (my bug loving little brother) and I have been very busy inventing new recipes to take into Romolonia. Fairies LOVE anything that’s sweet, especially if it’s glittery and we want to impress Queen Rosie, King Saffron and their new baby, Princess Cornflower and give them the best Christmas treats ever.
Rudolf banana and Nutella Christmas morning muffins
Now if you’ve read any of my adventures, you might know that we’ve met talking spiders and multicoloured sheep, but Billie is desperate now, to be introduced to Santa’s reindeer. I told him that we probably wouldn’t get to meet Father Christmas as he lives at the North Pole, not in Romolonia, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed, just in case. I’ve asked some of my friends from Melrose House nursery to help me make lots of Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer muffins for Christmas morning. Here’s the recipe we used:
What you need:
• 75g/3oz melted butter
• 250g/9oz self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 115g/4oz caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 large, ripe bananas
• 2 medium eggs
• 125ml/4fl oz milk
Icing:
• A jar of Nutella
• A packet of pretzels
• A packet of red M&M’s (or glacé cherries)
• White ready-to-roll icing
• A black and red edible pen
What you do:
- Mash the banana and then mix all the other ingredients together in a large bowl until you have a good cake batter and there are no floury bits. Spoon the mixture into 12 large muffin cases. Get a grown up to put the tin in the oven at 180ºC for 22 minutes.
- Get a grown up to take them out the oven and leave to cool.
- To decorate, spread a thin layer of Nutella over each muffin. Break the pretzels so that they look like antlers and stick into the muffin. Then make eyes from the white icing by rolling a small piece in your hands and drawing a small dot in the centre of each eye for his eye ball. Stick the eyes in place onto the Nutella. Lastly, make a smiley mouth with the red edible pen and pop a big red nose in the middle of the muffin to help Rudolf guide Santa’s sleigh right to your door!
Sparkling Peppermint Snowballs
Billie wanted to make chocolate bug cakes but I thought that sparkling peppermint snowballs would be better and as I’m the Royal Baker, I get to choose! They are really easy peasy to make and taste yummy.
What you need:
• 1 packet of white ready to roll Renshaw icing
• 1/4 tsp peppermint essence
• A sprinkling of icing sugar
• 1 pot of edible fairy glitter, available at
What you do:
- Open the packet of white icing and knead in the peppermint essence (you might need a bit of icing sugar so your hands don’t get too sticky).
- Break off small bits of icing (about the size of your thumb) and roll these into snowball shapes. Using a clean pastry brush or paint brush (that hasn’t been dipped in paint) smear on a little water to help the glitter to stick.
- Put the glitter onto a saucer and roll your snowballs in the glitter ready for a fairy peppermint snowball fight!
Glittering Marzipan Dates
Candy is the Head Fairy in Romolonia, she is definitely “in charge”. I find her a little bit scary but I know she’s just trying to be organised and make sure that Queen Rosie has everything she needs. Last week, Candy told me that she had to get some fresh dates for the Queen as they are her most favourite fruit in the whole of Romolonia. This has given me an extra specially good idea for a Christmas present for Queen Rosie – stuffed marzipan dates with edible fairy glitter (I hate marzipan and so does Billie but my mum loves it, so if I’ve got any left over, I might give a box to mum as well).
What you need:
• A box of dates
• A packet of marzipan
• A little packet of chocolate cases
• Different coloured edible fairy glitter (try my shop www.flossiecrums.com)
What you do:
- Very carefully split each marzipan almost in half, but not quite (lengthways).
- Take a small bit of marzipan and roll into a sausage shape and press it into the middle of the date. Sprinkle with edible fairy glitter and place in a mini chocolate case.
Marshmallow Snowmen
One of my best friends from Romolonia is a little fairy called Minty. She tells wonderful jokes and is always giggling. Her best joke this week is:
What do elves learn at nursery school?
The elf-abet!
She loves playing in the snow and asked me if I could make her a snowman this year. The problem is we haven’t had any snow yet. I also I think she might get scared if I build an ordinary human sized snowman. So I’ve invented a fairy sized one just for her, made from marshmallows.
What you need:
• I packet of marshmallows (preferably just white ones)
• Edible pens (now in most supermarkets)
• Skewers or cocktail sticks
• Packet of Starbursts
• Large gumdrops
• Whole cloves
• Red or green edible laces
• Sharp knife
What to do:
- With a rolling pin, flatten/roll the Starburst and using a small circular biscuit cutter, cut a small Starburst disk, for the brim of the snowman’s hat. Thread a gumdrop onto a skewer followed by the Starburst brim.
- Thread two marshmallows onto the stick for the head and body of the snowman.
- With a black edible pen, make dots for the eyes, nose and mouth. With any other colour, make dots for buttons on the second marshmallow. Press cloves into sides for arms. (If you have difficulty getting cloves into the marshmallows, use a toothpick to make holes).
- Tie an edible lace and pretend it’s a warm woolly scarf to keep frosty warm!
Gingerbread Cookie Christmas Tree Decorations
I’m SO lucky, I’ve got so many fairy friends in Romolonia. There’s Candy and Minty who I’ve already told you about and Cherry, Crystal, Plum and, of course, little Honey.
But you know what – I’ve never met the fairy who sits on top of the Christmas tree. (it must be so uncomfortable don’t you think?)
Anyway, I thought I’d make the Christmas tree fairy some decorations for her tree, here’s my special gingerbread cookie recipe:
What you need:
• 350g (12oz) plain flour
• 175g (6oz) light soft brown sugar
• 100g (4oz) butter
• 1 medium egg
• 4 tbsp of golden syrup
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 1/2 tsp of ground ginger
What you do:
- Get a grown up to turn the oven to 190ºC.
- Put the flour, sugar and butter into a bowl and using just your fingertips, break up the butter so that the mixture looks a bit like breadcrumbs. Tip all the other ingredients into the bowl and with a spoon mix everything together until a large ball of dough is formed. Leave the ball in the fridge for 20 minutes to rest.
- Sprinkle a small handful of flour onto the work surface and roll out the dough until it is about the thickness of a 50p. Stamp out your favourite cookie shapes and transfer the shapes carefully to a greased baking sheet. Get a grown up to put the tin in the oven for 10 minutes.
- When the cookies are cool, you can either ice them, sprinkle them with glitter or leave plain. I threaded mine with string so that I can hang them on the tree.
I hope this year I get introduced to the Christmas tree fairy.
Happy Christmas and happy baking
xx Flossie Crums
P.S. please visit my website www.flossiecrums.com I’ve recently opened my own online
baking shop and I’ve even got a fan club which I’d love you to join.
