Gingerbread House [db]

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.

This was super fun to make ESPECIALLY because I had never made a gingerbread house from scratch before. Super easy, make the gingerbread pieces and hide all the mistakes by royal icing!

I had to make it kinda simple because I ran out of time before my party, but I added some trees and some gingerbread people made with the same recipe!

I totally forgot about taking a picture of the template, but it was similar to Anna's but measured out. I had measured the base to being 4 in by 6 in. and the front house part was a square that was 4" by 4" and then a triangle on top! I tried my best to get everything, but I'm not sure if I did.

I was standing in my kitchen for about 30 minutes trying to measure out a good size and shape for my gingerbread house while on the phone with my architecture enginnering major boyfriend begging him to create a template for me. Obviously he just laughed and made me make my own template which of course I did.

It was super fun to make and my roommates who ended up eating it loved it!

I did want to make another one, but that never came to be with all the craziness that is the holidays...maybe before I leave for college again!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS ALL!!

Ice Cream in December?

Yes, ice cream in December.

As part of my Christmas present to two of my friends, I decided to make an ice cream cake for one, and ice cream cupcakes for the other. It was quite a fun journey just because it's fun to make ice cream cupcakes and cakes under a time limit and in December.

I think about it and on the East Coast they have snowy weather, yet here, in California, I can make ice cream cakes and it's still quite sunny.

So first, the base recipe was this wonderful chocolate cake and idea!

For Kevin, who I made Hummingbird cupcakes for a couple months back, had requested that I make him a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake. So I added some mint chips to the cake and made a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake!

For Jon, who is another best friend of mine, I decided to surprise him. He said that he really liked Black Cherry ice cream, so I decided a Black Forest Ice Cream Cupcake would be the best choice. I used the same recipe, but decided to cut it in half so I wont end up with too many cupcakes. So I decided to have a cupcake bottom, Black Cherry ice cream middle, with whipped cream, chocolate sprinkles and a maraschino cherry on top!

ps. picture up top isn't mine. =]

Stained Glass Trees

I saw these cookies in Martha Stewart's Cookie book and I knew that I had to make them sometime. I had to find the perfect occasion to make them and I had thought that the last lunch meeting of the semester between a close friend and I was the perfect occasion for these cookies. I had this huge urge to bake a couple days ago too because I was studying for finals and all the stress was building and it was a stress-reliever.

So while I was baking these wonderful cookies, my fridge decided to break, so instead, I'm left with just a couple of cookies which I gave to one of my closest girlfriends, Kimberly as part of her gift.

Kimberly and I from like 2 summers ago.

Obviously my cookies aren't as pretty as Martha's but still awesome! I had one, and it was pretty good. Candy and cookies put together? Who doesnt love it?

Since I have extra dough, I'll be baking the rest of them when I get home from Berkeley, back to suburbia and cars. Perhaps, I'll make some that are actually more stained glass looking with different colors and what not.

ps sorry about the pictures. I was in a hurry. I took them in front of my computer and at night!

ps. birthday in 2 days!

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cookie Cutouts [msc]

These cupcakes were so fun to make!
I had a super fun time making them, I actually didnt even get to try them because I had made 12 of them exactly with half of the recipe from the book and 8 went to this "family" dinner party, and 4 stayed at home. When I got home, there were none left! It's all good though. I know that they all enjoyed the cupcakes and the cookies on top!

As you can see, I made other cookies too and decorated them. Trees, stockings. I had made some candy canes, but decorating them was so hard, and so was the snowmen. I have no idea what to do without using like a bajillion colors...that I dont have.

I would like to thank one of my friends, Tiffany, who took these beautiful pictures of the desserts after Secret Santa. I think it was super fun. We also watched Glee! The episode of Glee was so like revealing but good though.

If you noticed, there's on with like the frosting on the bottom of the cookie..and that's cause I was going to try to stand each on the cupcake...that obviously didnt work. They ended up just staying like the way they are you see in the pictures. I also used the brown sugar cream cheese frosting from the applesauce cupcakes because I just had no time to do all of this and try to make frosting as well. I tried to add some powdered sugar to it to stiffen it up, but that didn't work. Oh well!

The camera is my friend Dmitriy's. It's super nice! If you have time, check out his awesome pictures of planes and cars and vacations that he takes with his parents. Anyways, I looked at the previous picture and thought - KOREAN DRAMA. Two guys fighting over one girl! Sorry, finals are draining my brain and so I'm going CRAZYYYYYY!

My Circle K family that is!

The recipe for this month's Cupcake Club is found on pages 246 of Martha Stewart's Cupcake book. Thanks to Kayte from Grandma's Kitchen Table for choosing this.

Secret Baker!

For the past two posts, I was posting what I had made my Secret Baker! Well, I got my package yesterday!

The box, shall I open?

YES!

I opened and found three different things in it!

All of them are so yummy! Thanks Julie!

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipe two for my Secret Baker! This cookie was based off of Martha Stewart's Banana-Walnut Chocolate Chunk Cookies. Mine were different mainly because I left out the walnuts and substituted the semisweet chocolate chunks for milk chocolate chips!

These cookies were surprisingly very good. I couldn't stop myself from taking occasional tastes out of the batter bowl. It was just so good!

Sorry about the lack of details and writing! Finals are next week so between studying and baking, there has been little time to anything else.

Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies

This month, I have decided to participate in Secret Baker again. The first cookie that I had made was this chocolate gingerbread cookie out of Martha Stewart's cookie cookbook.

I had to sub out the fresh ginger for ground ginger because I had none left, but it still tasted very much like a gingerbread cookie. BUT with chocolate.

It definitely was a delicate balance between the two - ginger and chocolate do not seem like a great combination, but in actuality, they seem like a pretty good combo for a cookie.

They definitely did not spread as much as the ones in the book looked like they did, but then again, I think I made my cookies smaller than the ones in the book.

YUMMY!

Chocolate Espresso (Mini) Chessecake [sms]

This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays pick, Chocolate Espresso Cheesecake, was chosen by Shandy of Pastry Heaven.

Being late and missing a couple of the picks from last month, I decided that I would make this super early - Tuesday!

I had left out the rum - since I am afterall still underage. Also, I left out the hazelnuts in the cookie crust part - I didn't have enough time to get some. I don't think either really made a big difference. I also left out the glaze on top - I made these mini cheesecakes in the nick of time. They were out and ready about 30 minutes before I had to leave.

The crust ended up a bit harder than I wanted it, but overall it was still really good. The cheesecake part was very rich and creamy - so rich and creamy that I kind of didn't want to finish it, but I did! I gave them out to my friends and such, and they all enjoyed it. I think my roommates did too!

Recipe for the cheesecake here! Make sure to check out the rest of the SMS bakers on the blogroll.

Peppermint Brownies

Two weeks ago, I had gotten back a test in one of my accounting classes and I had gotten a 100%. I mean I can't say that I was expecting it, but I had worked hard in that class and studied with a friend and had gotten a good grade. I was proud of myself.

My friend, who hates accounting, had also gotten a 100%. I was so proud of her because she had learned all that stuff the couple nights that we had studied together.

Anyways, last week in class while we were learning something new, she had wrote on my notes, peppermint brownies. I thought that I would surprise with these brownies since she did do very well.

I know that you can't tell they are peppermint brownies because they dont have crushed peppermint candies in them or on top of them, but I assure you, this brownie recipe was amazing. It's so minty and chocolatey - its like amazing!



Peppermint Brownies:
[I made them in a 8 in round pan and also a ramekin for myself]
(adapted from this recipe)
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon peppermint extract
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour the pans you plan on baking this in.
2. In a large saucepan, melt 1/2 cup butter.
3. Remove from heat, and stir in sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and peppermint extract.
4. Beat in 1/3 cup cocoa, 1/2 cup flour, salt, and baking powder.
5. Spread batter into prepared pan.
6. Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Do not overcook. [mine were done in about 20 minutes so make sure to check!]

What I also loved about this recipe was that I only had ONE pan to wash other than the dishes that I baked in. Also sorry for the lack of good lighting! I thought I would have extras for later, but I actually ended up meeting up with her at about 8 so therefore no light except the ones in house!

Also guess what I got recently! Thank you Karen!