Gingerbread men

Last week, I bought a gingerbread cookie kit (see post 5th December). Well, I have made them and here is what they looked like cooling on a silicone non stick baking mat.


I must say that making them is trickier than I thought. The mixture was easy enough to make. However, the skill is in the rolling out and cutting. First, the recipe says roll out the dough to 3/16 inch thick. Well, if you do that, you do not get the 24 gingerbread men you are supposed to - 12 back (plain outline) pieces and 12 top pieces with feature (per picture). The dough really has to be about 2/16 inch thick to get that many. I do prefer them thinner as they are crunchier when baked. Also, they look better when you assemble them as instructed ie. sandwich two pieces with icing (see picture on the packet). Also, I found that the dough was a lot smoother with some extra kneading. I found this out after I cut out the first batch of cookies and was re-using the leftover dough. So, another tip is, knead the dough lightly before you use it. I also found that getting the dough to be evenly thick was a LOT harder than I expected. This would not be as important for small cookies but as the gingerbread cookies were rather large any unevenness was very noticeable.

Much to my detriment, I found that it is critical to be very careful when transferring the cut dough to the baking tray. Any movement and you will have trouble matching the back to the front pieces when you sandwich them. As you can see from my picture above, the legs of my gingerbread men are not all spaced apart equally. So, for my next attempt, I will use a paper template to check that the cookies are placed correctly .......... or just cut out plain outline pieces and add in the features (eyes, mouth, buttons etc) with icing and candy.

Fuss-free bacon and onion quiche for a casual lunch

I had some dear friends over for lunch yesterday. I decided that with the Christmas shoppers and the weekday lunchtime crush, we would enjoy catching up a lot more if we stayed home instead. This way, we could have a leisurely lunch without being squashed and hurried.

Here's what we had - carrot salad, bacon and onion quiche and for dessert, banana cake. The recipes for the salad and quiche follows. For the banana cake recipe, see my post of June 6th.

All 3 recipes are incredibly easy to prepare, fail proof and makes for a pleasant fuss free meal.

One Step Bacon and Onion Quiche

Ingredients

1 tablespoon butter
1 medium onion
2 rashers of bacon
3 eggs, beaten
¾ cup milk
¾ cup pouring cream (I used Paul's Thickened Cream)
½ cup of grated cheese
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
¾ cup packaged pastry mix (I used Betty Crocker's Pie Crust mix)
20cm pie dish

Preheat oven to 180° C

Method
1 Cut the onion in half then slice into fine half rings. Remove rind from bacon and chop into small bits.
2 Melt butter in a fry pan. Lightly fry onion and bacon. Drain off fat and cool slightly.
3 Place pastry mix, chopped fresh parsley and grated cheese in a mixing bowl. Pour in the rest of the ingredients and mix well.
4 Grease pie dish lightly with butter.
5 Pour in mixture.
6 Bake for 30-40 minutes, until set and golden.
Note: the quiche is light and almost like a souffle with just a hint of pastry crust - scrumptious!
Alternative fillings could be asparagus, mushrooms, canned artichokes and chopped barbeque chicken.

Serves 4.

Carrot Salad

Ingredients
2 cups grated carrots
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 cup roughly chopped walnuts

Method
1 Combine carrots, raisins, mayonnaise and lemon juice in a salad bowl.
2 Top with chopped walnuts.

Best made close to serving.

Gingerbread Cookies

In preparation for Christmas, I have been looking up recipes for gingerbread cookies recently. I think it's always nice to give something home made in addition to the store bought gifts. It just seems a lot more thoughtful. Anyhow, I have a recipe from a friend from Norway. It's her mother's tried and tested recipe which she so kindly shared with me. But the trouble is, it looks so complicated. Then I came across a recipe in the South China Morning Post yesterday (Sunday) which is less complicated. Which recipe should I try?? Then, voila, I came across a gingerbread man cookie kit in the supermarket! All I need for the cookies is butter, honey and water; and for the frosting, butter, icing sugar and milk. In the box are a flour mix for the cookies and a vanilla frosting mix plus a gingerbread man cookie cutter. For $48, it seems like a reasonable price to pay for 12 "sandwich" cookies. I know it does seem like a cop out, but maybe after I get the hang of the technique of mixing, rolling and cutting, then, I'll move on to the "start from scratch recipes".

Here's what the "kit" looks like (snowman and tinsel tree not included :0) :-





This will be my project this week. If the cookies turn out well, I'll be making more in a couple of weeks to share with my family and friends over Christmas.