Q: When is a birthday cake not a birthday cake?

A: When it's a 'Not-Gingerbread-But-Lemon House'...

My icing was a little too sloppy giving this somewhat wind-blown effect!

I had such fun making this! 

(Heavens, I do say that a lot!)  

I used the recipe for plain biscuits from the Biscuiteers' book (which you can buy here, amongst other places), adding lemon rind for a little zing.  I followed the Biscuiteers' instructions properly, rolling the dough out between two sheets of baking parchment, then chilling it before cutting the shapes.  

The birthday girl and I had already drawn out a pattern for this size of house (about 4 inches square, to accommodate a tealight for the essential illumination) when we made the bigger one the weekend before last.  I just had to cut out the pieces, bake them, whip up some royal icing and pipe away.  Sweet decoration was subdued this time - only dolly mixtures allowed. (Editor's note: this may be because all the other sweets had been gobbled up before the house was ready...)

I do not have the steadiest of hands for piping, but I was still pretty happy with the outcome, as was the birthday girl.  My best discovery for this kind of icing task is the fabulous Tala squeezy bottle...

So much easier to manage than a piping bag!

The sparklers were great, as long as you didn't blink ('cos then you'd have missed them!)

I can definitely recommend biscuit-house building as a perfect recreation for a rainy day.  Looking at the weather forecast, we might soon have a whole village here!

Welcome aboard to new followers and thanks for all the lovely comments recently!