EDIBLE DUST RECIPES

Steps:

• Heat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Grease the base of a 20cm/8in springform or loose-bottomed cake tin with a little of the oil, then line with edible rice paper (or baking paper if you can’t find it). Tip the almonds onto a baking tray and roast for 5–8 minutes, or until lightly golden-brown. Remove and set aside to cool. Lower the oven temperature to 150C/Fan 130C/Gas 2.
• When the almonds are cool enough to handle, roughly chop with the walnuts and pistachios. Tip into a mixing bowl with all the dried fruit, flour, cocoa and spices. Mix together.
• Heat the honey, sugar and marsala (or sherry), in a saucepan over a medium heat until the sugar has melted. Allow to bubble for 3 minutes. Carefully pour over the fruit-nut mixture and mix through. Scrape into the tin and use a wet spoon to press the mixture down into a firm, flat cake. Bake for 1 hour – 1 hour 10 minutes, or until the surface is still soft, but not sticky to touch.
• Cool the panforte in the tin for 10 minutes, then carefully run a palette knife around the edge to release, and remove from the tin. If using edible paper, keep on, otherwise remove the baking paper. Cool completely on a wire rack, then dust thickly with icing sugar. Cut into thin wedges to serve.

Steps:

• Heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Melt the butter, sugar and syrup in a pan. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ground ginger into a large bowl, then stir in the butter mixture to make a stiff dough. If it won’t quite come together, add a tiny splash of water.
• Cut out the template (download from the tips below). Put a sheet of baking paper on a work surface and roll about one quarter of the dough to the thickness of two £1 coins. Cut out one of the sections, then slide the gingerbread, still on its baking paper, onto a baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough, re-rolling the trimmings, until you have two side walls, a front and back wall and two roof panels. Any leftover dough can be cut into Christmas trees, if you like.
• Pick out the most intact flaked almonds and gently poke them into the roof sections, pointy-end first, to look like roof tiles. Bake all the sections for 12 mins or until firm and just a little darker at the edges. Leave to cool for a few minutes to firm up, then trim around the templates again to give clean, sharp edges. Leave to cool completely.
• Put the egg whites in a large bowl, sift in the icing sugar, then stir to make a thick, smooth icing. Spoon into a piping bag with a medium nozzle. Pipe generous snakes of icing along the wall edges, one by one, to join the walls together. Use a small bowl to support the walls from the inside, then allow to dry, ideally for a few hours.
• Once dry, remove the supports and fix the roof panels on. The angle is steep so you may need to hold these on firmly for a few mins until the icing starts to dry. Dry completely, ideally overnight. To decorate, pipe a little icing along the length of 20 mini chocolate fingers and stick these lengthways onto the side walls of the house. Use three, upright, for the door.
• Using the icing, stick sweets around the door and on the front of the house. To make the icicles, start with the nozzle at a 90-degree angle to the roof and squeeze out a pea-sized blob of icing. Keeping the pressure on, pull the nozzle down and then off – the icing will pull away, leaving a pointy trail. Repeat all around the front of the house. Cut the chocolate mini roll or dipped Flake on an angle, then fix with icing to make a chimney. Pipe a little icing around the top. If you’ve made gingerbread trees, decorate these now, too, topping each with a silver ball, if using. Dust the roof with icing sugar for a snowy effect. Lay a winding path of sweets, and fix gingerbread trees around and about using blobs of icing. Your gingerbread house will be edible for about a week.