Mamma Biscuit has coined this week as Christmas Village Week—and if we had our way, public schools would be off the entire week so that children nationwide could stay home and work on their own festive village in the medium of their choice. Anyway, all week long, we Biscuits will be highlighting some of our most intense obsessions with Christmas displays involving paper and ceramic villages and all the detailed accessories that go along with it! So to kick-start it all off, we have decided to bring you Mamma’s snowy village in cake-form—specifically, a yummy, vegan nutmeg cinnamon cake! That’s right, there is such a mold for such a display. Knowing how much I love Christmas villages, my art director went all out last year by gifting me a snowy village cakelet pan from Williams-Sonoma. This nonstick cast-aluminum pan bakes six miniature cottages and is a must-have for any serious baker during the holidays.
Now this is what the pan looks like (photo courtesy of William-Sonoma.)
And this is what the award-winning, professional photoshop wizards at Williams-Sonoma have generated as a possible outcome from using such a baking mold. (Again, photo courtesy of William-Sonoma.)
Now this is what Mamma and the Biscuits have come up with.
Yeah, I know, it’s a bit of a mess but the process of decorating this village was way more fun than those horrid ginger bread houses—afterall, I like to play Godzilla with my edible village by simply mouthing a house as a quick snack. Don’t worry though, these homes are insured with Allstate, they’ll get their money back! Now let me make a few suggestions before any of you make an attempt at creating this at home:
1) Spray the hell out of the inside of those molds with nonstick spray so that all the details stay intact when you remove each house from the pan. Trust me, the last thing you want is a village looking like the remnants of stone houses in Pompeii!
2) Don’t get discouraged once you loosen these cottages from their molds—the details come alive as soon as you sprinkle powdered sugar over them (especially on the tiling of the roofs)
3) Make sure you decorate each home with icing before you position all of the homes in their specific spots—it reduces your chances of smudging.
4) Use shredded coconut to fill in the uneven gaps at the bottom of each home and to generally anchor any accessories like candy canes or pipe-cleaner trees.
Mamma Biscuit contributed so much to the creation of this display! She positioned herself right at our feet and while we were mixing the batter and preparing our icing, she stared at us intensely with her glazed eyes—just waiting for a morsel of batter to fall on the floor!
Happy Baking and Enjoy!
12 Days until Christmas, If you haven’t locked yourself in your car to scream it out, then there is something wrong with you!
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