Daring Bakers - Dec. 09 - Gingerbread House

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.
Making gingerbread houses from scratch was never my thing. I've always been too lazy and have either bought the kit or used graham crackers. So I was pretty excited about this month's challenge.
Instead of making one big house, I made four small houses so my kids can each decorated their own.
Here's Sage's...
Abby's...
and Emi's...

...and there was dough left over so we made some gingy bears. ^_^

Holiday Goodies

Something about the holidays makes me crave sweets. Is it nature's way to add fat in preparation for winter? ^_^
Peppermint Toffee Bark... saw Almond Roca had one with peppermint candy in it which gave me the idea for this one.
Homemade Caramels dipped in Dark Chocolate...Trader Joe's carry this and for the longest time has been my indulgence every holiday. Unfortunately there isn't a whole lot in there and is always gone way too fast, so I learned to make my own caramel and just dipped them in chocolate. Haven't quite gotten the tempering thing down so it's not the prettiest of things, but still tastes oh-so-good!

Sugar Cookies by the kids... I'm not a fan of rolled cookies so I never make them, but the kids wanted to so it worked out. ^_^


Turkish Delights...bought some rose water just for this. The texture was a little softer than I expected but the kids still loved them.

Butter Mint Pillows

I found this recipe for butter mint pillows in the December issue of Woman's Day. It didn't require cooking with a candy thermometer and had just a few ingredients, I just had to try it. It was very easy and tasty too!

BUTTER MINT PILLOWS:

(makes 1 lb, about 225 mints)

1 stick (1/2 c.) salted butter, softened
1 box(1lb.) confectioners' (powedered) sugar, plus extra for dusting
2T heavy cream or milk
1 t mint extract
red and green liquid food color

1. In large bowl, beat butter until creamy. With mixer on low, beat in sugar, cream and extract until creamy and smooth.

2. Turn sugar mixture out onto a work surface lightly dusted with confectioners' sugar; knead until smooth and satiny. Divide mixture into thirds: Tint one pastel pink (2 drops red color), one pastel green (2 drops green color) and leave remaining portion white. Cover each portion with plastic wrap to keep it from drying out.

3. Line 2 baking sheets with nonstick foil. Lightly dust work surface with confectioners' sugar. Working with one color at a time, roll out 1/4 cupfuls of the mint mixture, using your fingers, into a 1/2-inch thick rope. Cut rope into 1/2- to 3/4-inch pillows. Transfer mints to prepared baking sheets with a spatula (be careful--mints are soft and will squish easily). Repeat with remaining mint mixture.

4. Let air-dry at room temperature for 1 to 2 days until firm enough to handle. Transfer mints to covered containers.

STORAGE TIP: Store in an airtight container at cool room temperature up to 2 weeks, or keep in refrigerator up to 1 month.

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

Simple toasted pumpkin seeds, soaked in salt water for a few hours and drained and dried overnight, tossed in melted butter and salt, baked for about 40 minutes, then sprinkled some sugar on them, giving them that salty-sweet "kettle"-like taste to them. The kids said these were the best seeds I've made so far!

Caramel Apples

Daring Bakers - Oct. 2009 - French Macaroons

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

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Macaroons are something new to me, I've seen them at stores but are always coconut so I never bought them. Turns out coconut macaroons are a US thing, in Europe they are almond based. So glad, since I'm not a fan of coconut. ^_^

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The ingredients were only almond flour, powdered sugar, regular sugar, and egg whites. They were fairly simple to make. My only problem was that they stuck to the non-stick liner so the bottoms tore a little. Fortunately, I only had one liner so I used parchment for the other sheet, sprayed a little baking spray on it and they glided right off. The cookies taste like butter/sugar cookies with a chewy texture. I sandwiched them with some chocolate ganache, they look like little hamburgers!

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Not all of the batter fit on my two sheets so the last batch went straight into the 375*F oven because I didn't have time to bring it back down to 200, then back up to 375. These cookies, in my opinion, came out looking nicer. They don't have their "feet" but look smooth and nice.

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Check out the recipe and the creations of the rest of the Daring Bakers here.

Roasted Peppers

Tried roasting my own peppers instead of buying those little cans. Used a stove top grill and roasted some Anaheim peppers. I'm not too familiar with peppers (except the usual bell) so I was surprised that these weren't spicy at all (aren't all Mexican peppers supposed to be hot?) The ingredients on the can simply state: green peppers. That doesn't help too much! I'll just have to keep trying different varieties...unless anyone out there knows???

Hot & Sour Soup

One of the best things about chilly weather is having a good bowl of soup. I used a recipe from Allrecipes.com, pretty much kept the seasonings for the broth but changed the veggies since I didn't have them. I kept it pretty simple, the broth with some sliced bamboo shoots and shiitake mushrooms, and eggs . It was a tad too peppery but was still very tasty.

Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup & Achiote Chicken

It's that time again for slow cooker cooking. I love how you can just throw everything in the crockpot in the morning and dinner is done. Oh, and the great smell throughout the house all day is wonderful too. ^_^

Made some Chicken Tortilla soup from Allrecipes.com to go with my chicken cooked in Achiote paste.

I was watching a Rick Bayless show and he was in the Yucatan going through a market with all the different kinds of pastes they use in cooking. One of which was Achiote paste, so when I found it in a Mexican market I grabbed it hoping to try something new. The recipe on the box was quite simple, chicken, potatoes, onions, achiote paste, oil, and water. Put them all into a pot and cook for 50 minutes. The sauce looks like it would be strong in taste, but rather the opposite. It was light in flavor and different. I wasn't sure if the kids'll like it but they ate it all so that was good.

Nametake

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Nametake is Japanese seasoned enoki mushrooms. They're delicious but rather costly. Found a recipe on cookpad.com (a Japanese recipe site) that was very simple, just four ingredients: enoki mushrooms, soy sauce, mirin (cooking sweet sake), and rice vinegar. If possible, I prefer using mirin instead of sugar so I look that in recipes. Overall, it was very easy to make, however it was a little too soy-saucy. Next time I'll decrease the soy sauce amount or try "lite" soy sauce. It turned out a little runnier than the store-bought kind so I might add a little corn starch next time. But given the simplicity and cost to make this, I'll definitely try this one again when I eat these up!

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Original Recipe:

2 sm. pkgs of enoki mushrooms

5T soy sauce

5T mirin

1T rice vinegar

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Put enoki, soy sauce, and mirin in pan, bring to a boil and simmer 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add the vinegar. Pour into sterile containers, let cool, and store in refrigerator.

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I usually eat these on top of rice, but I've seen them in salads as well as mixed with spaghetti pasta, even on top of hiyya-yakko (chilled tofu.)