Another month and another Daring Bakers Challenge.

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

Last month when I discovered we were baking canoli I joked about how I thought the daring bakers were reading my mind as I had wanted to give them a try for a while. At the end of my post I continued the joke with predicting the fact that this month’s challenge would be Gingerbread houses as I had wanted to make them this month as well. Well imagine my surprise as I read that this month’s challenge was – in fact – going to be gingerbread houses! I just about fell out of my chair! How awesome!

Homemade gingerbread houses instantly bring me to memories of my childhood. I can remember going over to grandma’s house every year for Christmas or Christmas Eve and spending a majority of the day decorating my gingerbread house with as many pieces of candy I could get my hands on as if it was yesterday. While those houses were not made from scratch, unlike the one we did for this month’s challenge; I still enjoyed every little bit of it!

Another thing I remember from my childhood was the snow. Growing up in Minnesota I got plenty of it. We spent many a Christmas sledding through the woods outside my grandmother’s house and engaging in afternoon long snowball fights and loved every moment of it. It truly has been a long time since I enjoyed a white Christmas seeing as how I have lived in
Texas for a little over 10 years now.

Well lucky me because this month not only gave me a flash back of my past with the making of gingerbread houses but I also got a white Christmas as well! For the first time in many a year we received snow here in Dallas and I doubt that there could have been a bigger smile on my face for the holidays! The only thing that is unfortunate is that shortly after taking pictures of our gingerbread houses and some of our newly fallen snow our camera decided that it was time to quit! I was extremely disappointed as I wanted to share with you pictures and recipes of all our favorite Christmas cookies!
I guess we will have to be on the lookout and pick one up soon so that we can get everything back to normal around here as soon as possible.

Now back to the gingerbread houses!

I never knew it could be so difficult making gingerbread houses from scratch. In an effort to save myself some time with this challenge I wanted to make my dough in advance and have it ready to go so that I could really have some extra time in decorating it. However, while the instructions say you can refrigerate the dough overnight, I highly recommend you do not. The dough cools too much and becomes impossible to work with. It also dries out significantly despite being wrapped in plastic and got to the point where I decided to just throw it out and start over. I also added an extra 1/2 cup water to the recipe to give it a little more workability.

Then came the Royal Icing…. What a pain! This icing recipe sets up so fast that I could barely squeeze it out of the pastry bag. I ended up using it for a couple of pieces and then opted for a fall back Royal Icing recipe that I had saved from some cake decorating classes I took. It was much more workable and I think saved myself a tremendous about of time. While it takes a little more time to set your wrists with thank you!

Basically the recipe mimics the one we used for the challenge but adds a quarter cup of water to it and removes the vinegar. You can then add powdered sugar to stiffen it up a little bit if it is runny or add more water to it if it becomes difficult to work with. All in all I was really happy with my final result and still had a blast doing it. After all the point of a challenge is to challenge your capabilities right?

With the last of our out of town guests starting to leave tonight I am reminded of all the wonderful memories we have created over the past few weeks and look forward to the ones that we will make in the future. I wish you all the most happiest of holidays and ask you to hold those who may be less fortunate in these times in your thoughts and hearts.

Merry Christmas!

Y’s Recipe:
Scandinavian Gingerbread (Pepparkakstuga)
from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas http://astore.amazon.com/thedarkit-20/detail/0816634963

1 cup butter, room temperature [226g]
1 cup brown sugar, well packed [220g]
2 tablespoons cinnamon
4 teaspoons ground ginger
3 teaspoons ground cloves
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ cup boiling water
5 cups all-purpose flour [875g]

1. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until blended. Add the cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Mix the baking soda with the boiling water and add to the dough along with the flour. Mix to make a stiff dough. If necessary add more water, a tablespoon at a time. Chill 2 hours or overnight.

2. Cut patterns for the house, making patterns for the roof, front walls, gabled walls, chimney and door out of cardboard.

3. Roll the dough out on a large, ungreased baking sheet and place the patterns on the dough. Mark off the various pieces with a knife, but leave the pieces in place.

4. [I rolled out the dough on a floured bench, roughly 1/8 inch thick (which allows for fact that the dough puffs a little when baked), cut required shapes and transferred these to the baking sheet. Any scraps I saved and rerolled at the end.]

5. Preheat the oven to 375′F (190′C). Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until the cookie dough feels firm. After baking, again place the pattern on top of the gingerbread and trim the shapes, cutting the edges with a straight-edged knife. Leave to cool on the baking sheet.

Royal Icing:

1 large egg white
3 cups (330g) powdered sugar
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon almond extract

Beat all ingredients until smooth, adding the powdered sugar gradually to get the desired consistency. Pipe on pieces and allow to dry before assembling. If you aren’t using it all at once you can keep it in a small bowl, loosely covered with a damp towel for a few hours until ready to use. You may have to beat it slightly to get it an even consistency if the top sets up a bit. Piped on the house, this will set up hard over time.

For Jess and I this holiday season will prove to be one that is both exciting and exhausting. It will be exciting in that a week from now her sister will be getting married. That means we will have many extra guests from out of town that we normally wouldn’t expect for our holiday festivities. This is also where the exhausting part resides as well. We will have many extra guests from out of town that we normally wouldn’t expect for our holiday festivities…..

While I’m glad that they will be here for this special occasion and even more excited about the fact that many of them will be extending their stays throughout the holiday seasons a few problems do eventually pose themselves.

I would love to believe that our holiday season budget can easily expand to allow us to get everyone a unique gift that they were secretly wishing for all year. However, sadly that is not the case. This is why I love DIY Christmas present ideas. Not only do they extend your gift giving budget so that no one is left behind but it also shows the recipient that you cared enough about them to take some time out of your busy everyday life to make something that you are sure they would appreciate. (I mean who doesn’t appreciate a homemade DIY Christmas present?). DIY Christmas presents also allow you; the gift giver, a chance to make things that you are almost certain everyone will like, which really helps when you are dealing with the problem of getting something for that distant relative who you don’t normally see on a regular basis.

DIY Brandied Cherries Christmas presents will be part one of a multi part gift Jess and I will be giving out this year. While I would love to tell you that this is something you can whip together in a couple of minutes this week to cover those last few gifts you were struggling with, alas, I cannot. See I knew that we would have extra guests this year and had been thinking about what we would be able to get them 4 months ago actually. That is why I did this post on How to make Brandied Cherries. It takes about 3 to 4 months for the cherries and sugar to blend perfectly with the alcohol.

I wanted to make the DIY Brandied Cherries Christmas presents special so I went out and bought some inexpensive glass bottles with corked tops to create a really cute presentation. Now you can gift these brandied cherries simply by giving away the containers in which they were stored (which are cute enough). What’s nice about that option is the cherries come with the gift and will make one of the greatest ice cream toppers I have ever had.

However, I really wanted my recipients to focus on the cherry flavored brandy that has been created. This is by far a unique and delicious creation. You can drink this straight or use it in your cooking. Like a holiday ham glaze. You could also create some really interesting mixed drinks. Like Cherry Coke? You’ll love the brandied cherry coke this can make! Let your imaginations be your guide!

Seeing as how doing this has resulted in some brandy soaked cherries sitting in a container in my fridge I will have to get creative and use these up. I already have a few great ideas in my head and can’t wait to make the rest of this year’s gifts….

Brandied Cherries Recipe

Things needed for this DIY project:

12 oz glass jars – equal to the number of recipients
Funnel
3 feet of ribbon cut into 6 inch lengths
Scissors
Tape
Printable stickers – I had circle stickers that I got from Avery however, sticker paper and an exacto knife work well too.

Directions:
Fill jars with brandied cherries using a funnel. Make sure to securely attach corked tops and clean jar of any spilled brandy.
Cut the ribbon and lay it over the glass in a criss cross pattern. Secure in place with a small piece of tape.
Place stickers over top of tape and ribbon.

How cute are these?!?

I took a little inspiration from Bakerella this weekend and decided to give making some cake balls a try for the holiday. What I really love about making cake balls is how creative they allow you to be. Simply bake a cake (possibilities are endless here) mix add in some frosting to give yourself some sculpting power and freeze them in any shape you desire!

I decided since this was my first time making cake balls I should stick to a flavor combination that is relatively classic, dark chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream icing, however, I am really tempted to start experimenting with different flavor combinations in the near future.

The only thing I had a hard time doing was deciding what shape to make with them? Seeing as how these delicious little treats were going to be for a holiday party we were throwing I wanted to make them matched our holiday decorations. That’s when it came to me. What about Christmas ornaments?

Christmas ornament cake balls were a perfect idea! They matched our decorations perfectly!

The only thing I do caution about making Christmas ornament cake balls is to give yourself enough time to let these suckers freeze completely. I pushed the envelope with time as I had a few things to take care of before the party and found that if you only let them set for 30 to 40 minutes the cake is still a little too sticky when dipped in the candy melts and can create some problems with crumbs being left behind. After rolling a couple I decided that they were too soft and I stuck them back in the freezer to harden a little more. After an hour and a half freezing the cake balls dipped into the candy melts perfectly.

Christmas Ornament Cake Balls
Variation of Bakerella’s Red Velvet Cake Balls (here)

1 box chocolate cake mix (cook as directed on box for 13 X 9 cake)
1 can chocolate buttercream frosting (16 oz.)
1 package red candy melts
wax paper

1. After cake is cooked and cooled completely, crumble into large bowl.
2. Mix thoroughly with 1 can buttercream frosting. (It may be easier to use fingers to mix together, but be warned it will get messy.)
3. Roll mixture into quarter size balls and lay on cookie sheet. (Should make 45-50. You can get even more if you use a mini ice cream scooper, but I like to hand roll them.)
4. Chill for several hours. (You can speed this up by putting in the freezer.)
5. Melt candy melts in microwave per directions on package.
6. Roll balls in candy melts and lay on wax paper until firm. (Use a spoon to dip and roll in chocolate and then tap off extra.)
7. Cut circle fondant toppers shaped like tops of Christmas ornaments. Use small dab of candy melt to “glue on”