In need of a snowy Christmas?

December 5, 2008 at 9:48 am | Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

I grew up all over Canada spending a lot of my life in Toronto (Ontario), Yellowknife (Northwest Territories) and Whitehorse (Yukon). So for me Christmas was always synonymous with snow. But, when I moved to Victoria, BC that ended. For the first few Christmas’s I really missed the white stuff but now, as I have no snow gear what-so-ever, I definitely prey that we don’t get snow on the island. When snow hits Victoria the streets are basically closed, the bus’ stop, it is impossible to get a cab and the streets are deserted because no one has any snow boots or warm winter jackets to brace the cold!

But deep down inside I definitely miss the snow. This year more than every as it seems that global warming has really effected this years winter all across North America. Whistler has gotten very little snow and they have the snow machines running non-stop. This is bad news for hubs because he grew up near Whistler and is obsessed with skiing. I am not kidding folks, skiing is a huge passion of his– we are constantly watching and re-watching ski movies and have so many copies of Freeskier and Powder magazines scattered around the house.

Since the mountains aren’t getting much snow I thought I could bring the feeling of a snowy, ski filled Christmas to him.

Welcome to our winter wonderland.

First, I had to make the base of where I would construct the Ski Chalet. I made this out of rice crispy treats. I multiplied the recipe by five! It is definitely tough work moving around all that marshmallow and rice crispies.

Then I spread the rice crispy treat onto a few pieces of cardboard covered with tin foil. To create the mountains I just put heaps of rice crispy treat in the corners. Then I covered it with parchment paper and molded the mountains with my hands.

I covered the mountains with royal icing. To create the look of a real mountain I swirled some black icing gel in the icing and then just caps the mountains with some white icing.

I prepared the Ski Chalet pieces the day before. I used a very simple gingerbread recipe I got from Canadian Living magazine.
Ingredients for Gingerbread

• 1 cup (250 mL) butter, softened
• 1 cup (250 mL) granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup (175 mL) fancy molasses
• 1/2 cup (125 mL) cooking or blackstrap molasses
• 5-1/2 cups (1.375 L) all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp (10 mL) ground ginger
• 1 tsp (5 mL) baking soda
• 1 tsp (5 mL) salt
• 1 tsp (5 mL) ground cloves and cinnamon

Preparation for Gingerbread

In large bowl, beat butter with sugar until fluffy; beat in eggs, fancy molasses and cooking molasses.

In separate bowl, whisk together flour, ginger, baking soda, salt, cloves and cinnamon; stir into molasses mixture in 2 additions, mixing well and blending with hands, if necessary.

Divide dough into 2 discs; wrap each in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours. (Make-ahead: Refrigerate for up to 1 week or overwrap with foil and freeze for up to 2 weeks.)

To make the Gingerbread Ski Chalet I also followed Canadian Living magazine instructions.

Here is the slow process of making the Ski Chalet.

The Ski chalet is standing tall!

I like these little guys.

Anyway, to do the ski lift was quite difficult. The reason why I had a rice crispy treat base was so that I could stick the candy canes into it so that they would have a base. The candy canes acted as the pillars and I used shoe string licorice as the wires. Hubs created the ski lift chair out of pretzels and we just tied it on with dental floss (it seemed it was the only was the ski lift would be able to stay put).

Of course, I tried to make the Chalet have a wooden cabin feeling to it. So I used stick pretzels to act as logs and covered them on the front of the Chalet.

Whistler is awesome but this is also a pretty sweet getaway.