Gingerbread House

Giving presents during festival holidays is something that’s been engraved into me by my mum. One Christmas, instead of giving out traditional chocolates, I decided that I would try my hand at something different. Due to my love of cooking, the idea of giving away something homemade seems more comforting then forking out money for things all too common.
I give you, mini gingerbread houses.

Due to the spare time that I have at work, I designed little templates for the house based on a few different sizes. In the ended I went with a medium sized shape as it was easier to cut and easier to decorate.
After letting the biscuits all cool down, the task of decorating the houses were more painful than I thought. Good thing mum was around and willing to participate. Having prepared royal icing in four different colours, arranged the lollies and made extra space, we sat down and began to decorate.
As you can see from the pictures, we have no imagination OR patience. After decorating two or three houses each (I made a total of 15), we were more than happy to sacrifice the good looks of the houses to “let’s just finish it”.
2hours later, yes, 2hours it took us, we finished. Knowing that the icing still had to harden, we waited another two hours before wrapping it up in cellophane.

Even this simple task was still too much to handle, since I was dumb enough to cut the cellophanes too small, so it was a struggle to be able to bundle the cellophane together to make it some what decent looking. Another two hours later, finished.
6hours it took for us to decorated gingerbread houses….and another 3hours of baking. Though I will say, it was a good way for mother and daughter to reconnect again.

Gingerbread house

3 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1 cup plain flour
1 tablespoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup pure icing sugar
185g butter, chopped
1/2 cup golden syrup
2 eggs, lightly beaten

Method

1. Combine flours, ginger, cinnamon, sugar and butter in a food processor. Process until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.


2. Whisk golden syrup and eggs together in a jug. With the motor running, add egg mixture and process until dough just comes together.


3. Turn onto a lightly floured surface. Knead gently until smooth. Cut dough in half and wrap in plastic wrap.


4. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours or until well chilled.


5. Roll dough, 1 portion at a time, between 2 sheets baking paper until 5mm thick. Using cardboard cut-outs as a guide, cut shapes from dough.


6. Place gingerbread in a single layer on trays. Freeze for 15 minutes or until firm.


7. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 4 baking trays with baking paper. Place gingerbread on trays.


8. Bake, 2 trays at a time, for 15 minutes or until firm.


9. Cool on trays.

Royal Icing

2 eggwhites, lightly beaten
3 cups pure icing sugar

Method

1. Using an electric mixer, beat eggwhites until soft peaks form. Gradually add icing sugar, beating constantly until thick.

Chinese Egg Tart

This is an attempt at creating those lovely tiny egg tarts that you see in Yum Cha's. I have always preferred the ones with the flaky pastry, though they are messier to eat. Since I love them so much, I decided to make these at home, though I used frozen puff pastry for the base...I don't have that much time on my hangs :)

Sometimes what I find difficult about recipes is when they're not written in enough steps. The recipe I used (which I ended up changing) had just two steps...one for the pastry and one for the filling. So after sitting around for a while, trying to get my head around the number of sieving involved, I rewrote the recipe to make it simpler....

Egg Tart

Ingredients

2/3 Cups sugar (caster or white is fine)

1 3/4 Cups water

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup milk

9 eggs (I used 600g sized eggs)

3 sheets Puff pastry (thawed)

Method

1) Grease one standard muffin tins (with 12 x1/3 cup tin)

2) On the puff pastry, cut out 12 circles, approximately 10cm in diameter

3) Place the puff pastry into the muffin tin. Set aside.

4) In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, water, vanilla extract and milk. Bring to the boil then reduce heat. Heat cook till sugar is dissolved. Watch out as milk will cause the mixture to bubble quite a bit.

5) Let the sugar/milk mixture cool till room temperature (it needs to be at that temp as you don't want to cook the eggs yet)

6) Preheat the oven to 230C (This way, you don't waste energy)

7) Placing a sieve over the saucepan, crack the eggs into the sieve then strain through into the saucepan. Stir till completely mixed.

8)Using a 1/3cup measure, spoon the egg mixture into the puff pastry casing, ensuring that it's filled to the top and not over flowing.

9) Bake in the oven for 15 - 30mins (Mine took 30mins). When you pierce the centre, there shouldn't be any liquid left.

10) Let it sit in the tin for 5 mins before removing.

NOTE: Mine puffed a little and some browned on the top. Not a true replica of the restaurant quality tarts, but it still tastes just as good.