The Nanny Piggins Guide to Conquering Christmas (13 page)

Cake

250 grams caster sugar

250 grams butter

250 grams self-raising flour

4 large eggs

zest of 1 lemon

Icing

the juice of 1 lemon

200 grams icing sugar

1.   Mix the sugar and the butter until creamy.

2.   Then mix in the flour, eggs and lemon zest.

3.   Pour the mixture into a greased cake tin.

4.   Cook until done. (It can be hard to tell when a cake is done. When you can smell it cooking, that is a good sign. You need it to rise and then solidify, so after it has risen don’t test it straightaway. Wait a couple of minutes, then you can pat it gently on top to see if it springs back. Or test it with a skewer or knife to see if it is gooey inside.)

5.   When the cake is cool, mix the lemon juice and icing sugar until runny. Then smear it over the top of the cake.

NB. As with all my recipes, if it doesn’t quite work the first time, just eat it anyway and try again. Nothing improves your cake-making ability like more eating and baking.

I do not normally approve of the mysterious practice of voodoo. Nor do I approve of making food into cute shapes. But sometimes when you are particularly cross with someone and there is a restraining order against you, you could get in a lot of trouble if you bite them on the shins. On these occasions it can be very therapeutic to bake a batch of gingerbread men, pretend they are the person you are angry with, and then chomp them all up. Plus, in the case of this recipe, the gingerbread is delicious, particularly if you decorate it liberally with lots of chocolatey decorations.

125 grams butter

125 grams sugar

4 tablespoons golden syrup

300 grams self-raising flour

4 teaspoons powdered ginger

1 egg yolk

Topping

a bucket full of chocolatey decorations

1.   Cream the butter and sugar together.

2.   Add the self-raising flour, powdered ginger, golden syrup and egg yolk, then mix it all up into a dough.

3.   Roll out the dough on a floured surface.

4.   Use a man-shaped (or woman-shaped, if you know Nanny Anne) cookie cutter to cut out your shapes, then put them on a baking tray covered in baking paper.

5.   Cook at 250°C for 5 to 10 minutes. Watch them like a hawk and whip them out of the oven as soon as they start to darken around the edges.

6.   Decorate your Gingerbread Men with icing and chocolates. (Traditionally Gingerbread Men are given raisin eyes and cherry buttons down their front. But I do not approve of fruit. So I like to pretend that my Gingerbread Men have come down with a raging case of chocolatitis, which means I cover them with chocolate buttons, chocolate freckles, chocolate chips, chocolate sprinkles and any other equally delicious confectionery until the surface of the gingerbread is barely visible.)

7.   Finally, and this is the fun bit, think dark thoughts about someone who has wronged you and then chomp into your Gingerbread Man and pretend you are biting their leg off.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I have. It is much cheaper than going to therapy and much more delicious.

It was the first day of the last week of school, and Nanny Piggins immediately knew something was wrong when she saw Samantha getting off the bus looking cheerful. It usually took Samantha 45 minutes and several slices of cake to let go of the anxieties caused by a day’s worth of education.

‘Why is your sister looking so happy?’ Nanny Piggins asked Derrick and Michael. ‘Has the canteen been selling those ice-blocks with the banned red food colouring in them again? Last time she had one she was hyperactive for a week, and had a red tongue for a month. Now I don’t begrudge anyone a treat-induced mania, but I would be much more comfortable with her food-fuelled joy if it was caused by a good old-fashioned ingredient like sugar rather than a modern man-made one like flavourings and illegal imported food colouring.’

‘It’s got nothing to do with iceblocks,’ Derrick assured his nanny.

‘Go on,’ Michael urged Samantha, ‘tell Nanny Piggins your good news.’

‘I’m a shepherd,’ declared Samantha with a beaming smile.

‘She’s got a head injury, hasn’t she?’ said Nanny Piggins knowingly. ‘Was it a fall? Or did she get in a fight in the canteen line while she was waiting for her contraband iceblock?’

‘No, she really is a shepherd,’ said Derrick.

‘In the school nativity play,’ added Samantha, finally able to stop feeling giddy long enough to say something helpful.

‘But you’re a girl!’ protested Nanny Piggins. ‘How can you be a shepherd? Everyone knows all shepherds are men, because no woman would be silly enough to stay up all night in a field full of sheep. No disrespect to sheep, I know they are lovely, sweet-tempered creatures. But they are also unimaginably stupid and they do get their own poo stuck in their wool and do nothing about it.’

‘They are going to give me a fake beard to wear,’ explained Samantha. ‘All the shepherds are girls. There aren’t enough roles for girls otherwise.’

‘Your school astounds me,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘They are dogmatic about the ridiculous five-day-a-week attendance rules. And now, just because it’s Christmas time, they actively encourage cross-dressing.’

‘Isn’t it wonderful!’ exclaimed Samantha as she literally skipped with delight.

‘You’re going to have to explain this to me,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I am completely unable to fathom your sister’s uncharacteristic ebullience.’

‘She was worried she was going to be asked to play the lead role,’ said Derrick. ‘You know – Mary.’

‘Who?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘The mother of Baby Jesus,’ explained Michael.

‘Oh, her,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Usually Margret Wallace plays her every year,’ said Derrick.

‘But Margret Wallace has blonde curly hair and blue eyes,’ said Nanny Piggins, ‘whereas Mary came from the Middle East so she must have had brown eyes and hair.’

‘But Margret is the prettiest girl in school,’ explained Michael. ‘Mary always gets played by the prettiest girl in school.’

‘But this year,’ said Derrick, ‘Margaret Wallace got chickenpox and is covered in spots.’

‘Surely Nanny Anne wouldn’t let a little thing like that stand between Margaret Wallace and the lead role in a play,’ said Nanny Piggins.

Nanny Anne was one of Nanny Piggins’ (many) arch rivals. In fact if there had been a tear in the space–time continuum, causing Nanny Piggins to be exactly replicated in a reverse clone, someone who was opposite in every single way, then Nanny Anne is what you would get (which makes you wonder if this is how Nanny Anne was created).

‘Margaret also broke her nose,’ added Michael.

‘She got chickenpox and broke her nose!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins. ‘What terrible bad luck.’

‘Well the chickenpox sort of caused the broken nose,’ explained Samantha. ‘Nanny Anne put so much calamine lotion on her that she got some in her eye and couldn’t see properly so she walked into a doorknob.’

‘I don’t blame her,’ said Nanny Piggins sympathetically. ‘If Nanny Anne were my nanny I’d walk into a doorknob too.’

‘She’s still going to be in the play,’ said Derrick.

‘But surely the poor child should be at home lying down?’ protested Nanny Piggins.

‘Nanny Anne insisted that the show must go on,’ explained Samantha.

‘But what could she possibly play with such hideous facial impediments?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

‘She’s going to be the back end of the donkey,’ said Derrick.

‘Nanny Anne can’t be happy about that,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Who’s playing the front end?’

‘I am,’ said Michael happily, ‘because I’ve already had chickenpox.’

‘Good,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Remind me to pack lots of chocolate inside the donkey suit for you to share with poor Margaret. One of Nanny Anne’s great failings is her total lack of appreciation for the recuperative properties of dairy milk chocolate. So who are you playing, Derrick?’

Derrick blushed. ‘Joseph,’ he admitted.

‘The male lead!’ exclaimed Nanny Piggins.

‘I think technically Baby Jesus is the male lead,’ corrected Michael.

‘Yes, but it isn’t a speaking part,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Any part that is traditionally played by a plastic doll is not a good role for an actor.’

‘I’ve got three whole lines,’ said Derrick proudly.

‘Excellent,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Show me the script and I’ll punch them up for you. See if I can add some jokes and perhaps a touch of soft shoe dancing.’

‘I don’t think you’re allowed to punch up the script,’ said Samantha. ‘It’s from the Bible.’

‘Saint Luke won’t mind,’ Nanny Piggins assured her. ‘I’ll only make improvements. After all, it’s been over 2000 years. The dialogue could probably do with freshening up and perhaps a few contemporary political references.’

‘I don’t think Headmaster Pimplestock will go along with that,’ warned Derrick.

Nanny Piggins sighed. ‘I find that there is no end to what Headmaster Pimplestock will agree to once I put him in a headlock,’ she said.