Gingerbread House

A continuation of my previous post about Gingerbread and Royal Icing.

Assembling the gingerbread house

1. Find a sturdy cardboard box and cut a square (or whatever shape you want, really) out of it. 

The square should be larger than the base of your house.  This square is what the house will rest on!  Cover the square in aluminium foil.

2. When the shapes are completely cool, you can see if they fit together right.  During baking, the shapes usually go a bit wonky; so cut off any excess biscuit from the bottoms of the triangles and short sides of the rectangles.

The house fits together with the two triangles standing next to each other, and the rectangles leaning flush against the triangles' sides.  Ideally, there should be no gap between the two rectangles at the top.

3. Put some - not all - of the royal icing into a snap seal bag, squeeze the air out and seal the bag.  Cut a smallish hole in one of the corners, so the icing can squeeze out of it.

Alternatively, you can use a piping bag.  But hey, snap seal bags are easy and disposable!  Less washing up!

3. Pipe royal icing onto the bottom of the two triangles.  Place the triangles on the foil-covered-cardboard with their backs to each other.  The room between them should be a little smaller than the width of the rectangle wall.

Hold the triangles steady for a while as the icing hardens (it's handy to have a helper for this).

4. Once the triangles can almost stand on their own (the wall that is added now will help them stay up) you can add one of the rectangular walls.

Pipe more royal icing onto one side of the triangles, and to the bottom of the rectangle.  Place the rectangle flush against the two triangles and hole for a minute or two while the icing hardens.

It is tradition, at this point, to add two gingerbread people to the inside of the house.

5. Pipe royal icing down the other two sides of the triangles and on the bottom of the last rectangle.  Place the rectangle flush against the sides of the triangle, and hold it there for a minute until the icing hardens up.

Ta daaaa!  Now your house is up!

6. Now for those pesky little freaking ginormous cracks that you didn't foresee would appear.

But do not fear!  There is an easy solution - stuff the crack with marshmallows, choc chips or whatever lollies you've got lying around.  That way the icing won't drip into the crack and leave a gaping chasm.

7. Gather decorations for your house.  I usually use: marshmallows, cachous (small, hard, shiny spheres that you can break your teeth on), sprinkles of various colours, M & Ms, Skittles and liquorice allsorts (I detest liquorice, but allsorts are pretty colours).

8.  Lather the top of the house with icing, and let it drip down the sides a bit.  It's cool if it looks like authentic stereotypical snow.  Then stick whatever lollies you want on it, or you could wait for the icing to dry and pipe designs on with royal icing.
This part is especially fun for kids!

I used chopped up liquorice allsorts to cover the faint pink tinge of marshmallows showing through the icing.

There are so many things you can do with gingerbread houses - get creative, and feel free to ask any questions in the comments.

Merry Christmas!

Gingerbread and Royal Icing

Christmas time for me means gingerbread time.  And gingerbread time means gingerbread people, gingerbread reindeer and gingerbread house time.  It's been a tradition in my family that we make a gingerbread house to share on Christmas day.  We make A frame-teepee shaped gingerbread houses, because they are structurally simple, they stay together and they're easy to make.  Gingerbread houses are a tonne of fun!


This post will show you how to make gingerbread and royal icing, and my following post will detail how to assemble a gingerbread house.


Recipe Adapted From: Gorgeous Biscuits (a Family Circle book)
Ingredients
140g butter
115g brown sugar
90g treacle (can substitute golden syrup)
1 egg
250g plain flour
30g self-raising flour (can substitute 30g plain flour and 1/2 tsp baking powder)
3 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp ground cloves
3/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp bicarb soda
Various decorations (outlined below under assembly instructions) for decorating the house


Method
1. Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

2. Beat in the treacle, then the egg.

3. Fold in the flours, spices and bicarb soda.  I usually add more ginger (for a more gingery tasting biscuit) and skip the cloves.  You may also need to add more flour until the dough becomes firmer (you should be able to poke it and come away with a clean finger).

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth.
I just use my K/paddle beater for this, or the dough hook which makes less mess.

4. Cover the dough with cling wrap and chill in the fridge for 10 minutes.  Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F.

5. Take a fair amount of the dough (about half) and place it between two sheets of baking paper.    Roll the dough out to about a 5mm thickness or slightly thicker using a rolling pin, rolling from the middle outwards.

6. a. If you're making shaped biscuits (not a house), cut out shapes from the rolled out dough with cookie cutters.  Peel the dough away from the cut shapes (you can re-roll this later) and chill the shapes in the freezer for a bit, it will make them easier to transfer onto another baking sheet.
When they're cool, move them to a baking tray covered with baking paper or a silicone mat.  To do this, I flip the shapes onto the palm of my hand then flip my hand so they land on the baking paper the right way up.

6. b. Bake for 10 - 15 minutes.  Let the biscuits cool on the tray for about 5 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack.


6. c. Follow instructions for royal icing.  Pipe the icing from a small hole in the corner of a snap seal bag into patterns or designs on the biscuits.  If desired, you can stick small lollies (such as M & Ms, cachous, sprinkles etc) on the wet icing.


7. a. If you're making a house, cut two isosceles triangles and two rectangles out of the dough (you'll probably need more than one sheet).  You can make them any size - however, make sure that the long sides of the triangles are the same length as the long sides of the rectangles.

Chill the cut shapes in the freezer, then transfer them to a baking tray covered with baking paper or a silicone mat.


7. b. Bake for 10 - 15 minutes.  Let cool on the tray, then transfer to a cooling rack.


7.c. Follow instructions for royal icing below, then instructions for assembling the gingerbread house in my next post.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Royal icing is the cement of the baking world.  


Royal Icing Ingredients
1 egg white
1/2 tsp lemon juice
125g icing sugar


Royal Icing Method
1. Whisk the egg white until foamy.  It doesn't take much effort, so you can do it by hand.

2. Whisk in the lemon juice.


3. Whisk in the icing sugar until the icing is thick, glossy and with no lumps.  When you lift up the whisk and dribble the icing back into the bowl, it should make patterns on the surface that stay there for a while before fading back into the mass.
If the icing isn't thick enough, add more icing sugar.
If the icing is too thick, add more lemon juice.


4. If you so desire, tint the icing a different colour than white by adding food colouring and mixing.

The Best Choc Chip Cookies

It's been a hectic couple of weeks.  First, there was the leadup to the dreaded exams at school and the traditional mountain of assignments dumped onto me by teachers.  Then there was the stress as I realised how many assignments I had and that I hadn't studied for exams.  Then there were the actual exams.  (Cue freakouts and late nights).  And then...I got my first ever catering order.


One of the girls I know at school was having her birthday party; she's one of the followers of this blog.  She wanted a sponge cake with berries and cream, brownie with caramel, macarons and tiramisu cupcakes.  I accepted.  Then I got another catering order from one of my Mum's work colleagues.  She wanted melting moments, baked lemon slice and mini vanilla cupcakes.  I accepted.


Wow, it was a lot.  There were late nights, dozens of eggs, kilos of flour, even more kilos of sugar, more real butter than I've ever used in my life and about a tonne of frustration.  I was so stressed that I didn't even think to photograph the end products!
Thank you so much, Mum, for helping me out and keeping me on task throughout that testing week.


In the end, it all turned out perfectly fine.  I packed all the ordered deliciousness into their own cardboard cakeboxes, and they were picked up with no dramas.  Finally, it was over, and I didn't want to bake another thing that required effort.


That's why these cookies are good.  Not only are they absolutely deliciously amazing, but they're fun to make and easy too.  After my bakeathon week, I made these with two of my best friends and it was awesome.


Recipe Adapted from: The Other Side of Fifty, in turn adapted from the New York Times
Ingredients
310g butter
230g brown sugar
250g white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla essence/extract
310g plain flour
260g bread flour (can substitute plain flour, but I found this type of flour in the baking section of my normal supermarket)
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt (omit if using salted butter/margarine)
135g dark chocolate, grated

225g dark chocolate, chopped into chunks

225g dark chocolate chips

Method
1. Cream butter and both sugars until light and fluffy.


2. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well between additions.

3. Beat in vanilla essence.  Continue beating until the batter is fluffy.


4. Add flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  Combine.

5. Using a food processor, grind up the 135g lot of chocolate.

Alternatively, grate against a grater.  (Difficult if you use chocolate in pellets and not a huge block, like me).  Mix the grated chocolate into the dough.

6. Chop one of the 225g lots of chocolate into smallish chunks.  (Bigger than the choc chips)


7. Mix all the chopped chocolate and choc chips into the dough.

8. Cover the dough with clingwrap and chill in the fridge for 24 - 72 hours.  The first time I made these, I left it overnight; with my friends, I left it in the fridge for the duration of a movie and the cookies were still fantastic!


9. When you're ready to bake the biscuits, preheat your oven to 175 C/350 F.


10. Shape the dough into 1 tbsp size balls.  Don't go much smaller than that.  Lay the balls out on a baking paper/silicon sheet covered baking tray, leaving a fair amount of space in between (they spread).

Squish the cookies down a little with your palm, but don't smush them so they're totally flat.


11. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes, or until the cookies are light gold on the top.

12. Cool on trays for 5 minutes, then transfer to cooling racks.

The end product should be slightly crunchy on the outside, but gooey and chewy on the inside.  The chocolate should be melty, and there should be chocolate consistently throughout the cookie.  Looks-wise, the cookies should be lightly golden and cracked, with speckles of grated chocolate throughout and large blobs of chocolate here and there.

Gingerbread Cupcakes

I hope everyone is familiar with gingerbread, at least the biscuit version.  Well, it comes in cakey form too!  I must say, that in cake form it is very good.  I found it had a more intense gingery, sweet flavour than biscuits and it provides the joyous opportunity to apply icing in a range of flavours.  Mmmm.  I made the gingerbread into mini cupcakes with cinnamon buttercream.

This recipe comes by way of my friend Em, who made gingerbread slice in one of her food classes.

Recipe Adapted From: school recipe

Ingredients
150g butter
125g brown sugar
150g treacle
200g golden syrup
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp bicarb soda
2 eggs
250mL milk
300g flour


Method
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.


2. Put patty pans in a cupcake tin, it can be big or small.  I used my mini tin.  Alternatively, you can make the gingerbread in slice form (line a 22cm x 32cm slice tin with baking paper).


3. Heat butter, sugar, treacle, golden syrup, ginger and cinnamon in the microwave until butter is melted.  Whisk the ingredients together.


4. Stir in bicarb soda.


5. Add eggs and milk, whisk well.


6. Add flour and whisk until there are no lumps.


7. Spoon mixture into the patty pans or pour into the slice tin.

8. Baking: for large cupcakes, bake for 20 - 30 minutes; for mini cupcakes, bake for about 15 minutes; for slice, bake for 35 minutes.  To check, stick a skewer into a cupcake/in the middle of the slice; it should come out clean, and the top of the gingerbread should be springy.

9. Cool.


10. Ice with buttercream or lemon icing.

Lemon Icing
Mix together 200g icing sugar, 1 tbsp water, 2 tsp lemon juice and 1 tsp vanilla essence.

Cinnamon Buttercream

I don't have proper ratios for this (because I'm lazy), but here goes.

Whip softened butter until fluffy, add icing sugar until it's sweet enough for you.  Whip some more.  Add a whole pile of cinnamon until it tastes cinnamonny.  If the buttercream is not soft enough to pipe/spread, add a tablespoon of milk at a time until it's softer.

Caramel

Ah, caramel - I had searched for an easy recipe to use with my brownies, not realising that a perfect one existed right on my bookshelf.  Thank you again, Nigella.  This caramel is thick, rich and absolutely delectable; you can do heaps of things with it.  Make caramel frosting, caramel brownies and I bet it'd taste amazing poured over vanilla ice cream.

Ingredients

300g caster sugar

125mL cold water

250mL double cream

Method

1. In a heavy based saucepan, dissolve the sugar in the water over a low heat.  Do not stir it, or the sugar will crystallise.

2. When the sugar seems dissolved, turn up the heat and boil until the mixture turns a darkish golden colour.  Make sure you don't cook it for too long, or it will burn!

This should take about 10 minutes or so.

3. When the caramel is golden, take the pan off the heat and slowly whisk in the cream.  Don't have a fit if it fizzes and bubbles furiously!  If the cream doesn't completely combine and the mixture is lumpy, put the pan back on the heat.

4. Leave it to cool.

-----------------------------------

I used this caramel in a butterscotch frosting, that was hailed as 'the best frosting I've ever had' by one of my Mum's colleagues.

To make butterscotch frosting, beat 400g cream cheese until smooth and softened.  Add 1 cup of the caramel and beat gently to combine.  Spread over a delicious cake.

-----------------------------------

This caramel would be pretty much perfect (...I think) to use in caramel brownies.

To make caramel brownies, use this brownies recipe.  Pour half of the brownie mix into the tin and bake for about 10 minutes, so the top is a bit baked.  Pour a layer of caramel over the top and spread gently.  Pour the rest of the brownie mixture over the top of the caramel, so there are 3 layers: slightly cooked brownie, caramel, then uncooked brownie on the top.

Bake for another 20 minutes or so.

Brownies

"I don't understand why people don't make brownies all the time - they're so easy and so wonderful."

Nigella Lawson

Thank you, Nigella, for thou hast shown me the light.  Brownies are truly wonderful; with their wonderful flaky top, cakey outer and gooey middle.  Don't forget the oh-so-chocolatey taste.  Plus, they are super easy to make and always a crowd pleaser.

Ingredients - 23 x 32cm brownie tin (approx 9 x 12.6 inch)

375g soft unsalted butter/margarine

375g very good quality dark chocolate

6 large eggs

1 tbsp vanilla extract

500g caster sugar

225g plain flour

1 tsp salt (omit if using salted butter/margarine)

300g chopped walnuts or pecans (optional - can substitute choc chips or other bitty ingredient instead)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.  Line a 23 x 32cm rectangular tin (or equivalent) with baking paper and set aside.

2. Melt the butter and chocolate together in the microwave, or in a heavy based pan.

3. With an electric mixer, beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla together until well blended.

4. When the chocolate mixture has cooled a bit, beat it into the eggs and sugar until just blended.  If you beat it on too high speed for too long, the brownies will be more cakey than fudgy.

5. Fold in the flour, and nuts if you're using them.

6. Scrape into the lined tin and flatten the mixture out with a spatula.

7. Bake for about 25 minutes in the preheated oven.  When the brownie is done, the top should be have a thin layer of flakiness but the middle should still be dense and dark.  Make sure you don't overcook them!

8. Cut into slices as big or small as you want.  I like about a 6cm square; the brownies are pretty rich.

You can add caramel in the middle, too - split the brownie batter into half.  Pour half in the pan and bake it for about 10 minutes or until the top is cooked-ish.  Then pour caramel in and the rest of the brownie over the top.  Make for another 10 - 15 minutes.

The caramel was a real hit with my friends.

So, whip up these delicious brownies for whatever event you next have on - believe me.  They are pretty much the best.