I don’t know if it’s because I love the story of Hansel and Gretel but I am very partial to a gingerbread house – especially at this time of year. I like looking at it more than I like eating it but most of all, I love decorating it.

Right on cue, at the very start of the festive season, Cost Centre #1 and I were asked to the Shangri-La’s gingerbread house Christmas workshop just before we left for Blighty:

In truth I didn’t get much of a look-in on the design front, “Mummy, this is MY house. Stop interfering.” Which is almost enough to make me want to do it all over again.

Thanks to my sister’s creativity on a rainy day, now I can.

She found this excellent recipe online and effortlessly – she promises it was dead easy – with the ‘help’ of my trusty four-year-old nephew, created this from her store cupboard ingredients:

It’s deliciously un-perfect (“Oh, you’re meant to trim it once it’s cooked, but we couldn’t be bothered”) and the crushed boiled sweets that make for stained glass windows at the front and back should be a lovely bright colour like red or green but Al and Raffy could only find Fox’s Glacier Mints that were lurking at the very bottom of the sweetie tin…and it looks all the more real because of it.

Without further a-do, for days that are too cold – or too hot for that matter – to venture outside, here’s good old Mary Berry’s recipe for a successful afternoon’s activity.

Our gingerbread house workshop was courtesy of the Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore