Challenge recipe 11: NINJAbread men

Yes, you read that right. Ninjabread men. My lovely high school bestie Cas got me these for my birthday:

How FREAKING AMAZEBALLS are they?????? Oh, and the "Lady Catherine's" tape Cas added
 is in reference to  Lady Catherine de Burgh in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

So I thought it would be a prime opportunity to christen Stephanie Alexander with a batch of gingerbread. I've never actually made gingerbread before, only gingerbread cake. So it was a double first! Triple first, if you include making and using royal icing.

Anyway, here's the book:

And here's what you'll need:

According to the recipe, you start by putting 85g of softened unsalted butter into the bowl of your posh mixer with the paddle attachment in place. Or, if you're me, you put 85g of softened unsalted butter in a mixing bowl and get out your $30 electric beater from Target. (One day, Cobalt Blue Kitchenaid. One day, you will be mine. MIIIIIIIINE, I TELLS YA!!!!! *shakes fist*) Ahem.

Here's 85g of softened unsalted butter:

Add to that 90g of brown sugar. And because I love you all, I put the brown sugar into a cup measure so you don't have to weigh out 90g. Because that's just stupid. Anyway, it's about 1/3 cup of brown sugar:

Then add 1/4 cup of golden syrup. Mmmm, golden syrup. For my little North Americans, I think you can use treacle as a substitute? But I'm not 100% sure, so you might want to Google that shit before you do.

Cream it all together with your $700 Cobalt Blue Kitchenaid  *sigh* electric beater:

Looks like peanut butter, but tastes SO much better! 

Next, separate an egg:

Stick the white in the fridge - you'll need it later on. Dump the yolk in the bowl:

And it in. When that's done, sift 235g of plain flour into a separate bowl. Again, because I love you, I put it into a measuring cup. It comes out at around 1 1/4 cups:

Add 1/4 teaspoon of salt:

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda:

1 teaspoon of ground ginger:

1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon:

1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground nutmeg out of a jar:

1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves:

1/4 teaspoon of white pepper (which I think looks something like cigarette ash... Mmmm, tasty!):

And 1/4 teaspoon of ground allspice:

Stir it all together with a spoon:

Then gradually mix it in using your $700 Cobalt Blue Kitchenaid on low speed electric beater on whatever the hell speed you like:

Spoon the dough onto a piece of Glad Wrap/cling film/Saran Wrap, and press into a rectangular shape:

Wrap it up, and refrigerate it overnight for like three or four hours. Then take it out of the fridge and let it soften for an hour about 10 minutes. Roll out the dough between two sheets of plastic film until it's about 5mm thick. You will have a rectangle of about 26cm x 30cm circle of random dimensions cos you're shit at using a rolling pin:

Slip the rectangle onto a baking tray and chill for an hour Get out your handy dandy ninja cookie cutters, because this freaking recipe is taking long enough to make as it is. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C, and go crazy with the cookie cutters:

Then put them on a tray lined with baking paper (also, pretend that there's a photo here of the uncooked ninjas on the tray. I completely forgot to take one) and bake for 10-12 minutes. While they're in the oven, put the remaining dough bits into the fridge. Take the ninjabread men off the tray pretty much as soon as they come out of the oven, and stick them on a cooling rack.

Continue to roll out the remaining dough and cut out ninjas until you've got no dough left. Here's some baked ninjas:

Once they're cool, start making the royal icing. It's pretty simple - 1/2 cup of icing sugar:

And the egg white you saved from earlier:

Beat the living shit out of it with your electric beater. Basically, you're making really sugary meringue, so you need it to be pretty stiff.

When it's done, add food colouring if you want. I tried to make it red, but it just turned out pink. Eh. Whatevs. You could use a piping bag, but I've become rather a fan of using zip lock bags with one corner snipped off. Saves on the clean up! #scoreoneforlaziness

Pipe ninja costumes onto your ninjabread men. If you wanted to go all out, you could pipe all the way around the edge in a different colour and then flood the whole thing with icing before doing the decoration in a different colour. But pfff, this recipe had already taken up seven hours of my life!

Allow the icing to set for an hour before putting into storage containers to cart them to work.

The verdict? They were a hell of a lot of work. But let's face it - they look pretty freaking amazing. And they were delicious - quite a bit spicier than normal gingerbread, and not quite as sweet. I'm kind of curious whether the extra refrigeration time adds anything to the dough or if it just makes it easier to work with. Next time I make ninjabread men, I might try another recipe for comparative purposes. Or I might just try the whole flood icing thing to see just how awesome I can get them to look!

Anyway, the final verdict was courtesy of my work peeps. A sure sign of a good recipe? Taking 18 ninjabread men to work and coming home with none, having only eaten one yourself!!

K xx

Dear 2010, where the hell did you go?

I finished up work for the year this afternoon. It was VERY exciting. But where the smegging hell did 2010 go to?????? I swear to God, we should only be up to about Easter... o.O

Anyway, 2010 - the year of text writing - is over. Christmas promises catch ups with old friends, family, and my puppy, who apparently had a tooth out today and keeps finding that his legs collapse underneath him because the anaesthetic hasn't worn off properly yet... Oh, and one very important catch up - my BFF Kat arrives in Melbourne from Auckland on Friday morning. Shenanigans are planned. Shenanigans involving Thai food and a chocolate tour of Melbourne. It promises to be complete awesomeness. And deliciousness... Mmmmmmmmm, Thai food. And Koko Black. Hells yes...

2011 should be an interesting year - we start installing the objects in the gallery in January, and we're due to open in the middle of the year. In addition to The Year of Opening, 2011 is clearly going to be the Year of Weddings. There's E and M's wedding in March, at which I'm a bridesmaid (as mentioned here). That one's in Melbourne. Then I'm a bridesmaid for Ness in November. That one's in Adelaide. And then there's my bestie Megan, who's getting married in September. THAT one is in America. Colorado, to be specific. And I'm going to do my darndest to get there for it!! Hell, I'm due for an overseas trip. Maybe I'll stop off in Auckland on the way and see Kat for a few days!

So a wonderful Christmas to one and all. I'll apparently be spending Christmas Eve icing gingerbread and making cupcakes - a nice restful break!! :S

K xx

PS. My housemate, D, officially knows me too well. She just presented me with a Prince of Persia calendar. A year of Jake Gyllenhaal?? Hells to the yes........

Gingerbread cake

This cake is awesome. I got sooooooooooooo many compliments about it at the weekend that it's quite tempting to start a bakery just selling gingerbread cake... It was even deemed a breakfast food by several people!!

Let's get to it - here's what you need:

Start with setting the oven to 160 degrees fan forced, and greasing and lining a 23cm square tin.

Take 125g of butter:

Chop it, and chuck it in a medium saucepan:

Oh, here are the awesome measuring cups I mentioned in my post about my Melbourne birthday. How cool are they?????? (Thanks Char!!! xx)

There's a 1/4 cup, 1/3 cup, 1/2 cup and 1 cup measure.

Take the 1 cup measure (or any 1 cup measure, really!!), and fill it with golden syrup...

Yuuuuuuuum. How good does this look????? (Or is it just me that thinks that?!)

Dump the golden syrup in with the butter:

Stick them on the stove, and stir until melted:

Once the butter and golden syrup are melted, take them off the heat. Then take a cup of caster sugar:

And dump it in with the melted butter and golden syrup:

Next, take two cups of plain flour and chuck them into a sifter:

Sift the flour into the saucepan:

Stir it all together and try not to drool:

Then dump in a teaspoon of baking soda:

Two teaspoons of ground ginger:

Half a teaspoon of cinnamon:

Half a teaspoon of mixed spice:

And a quarter of a teaspoon of ground cloves:

Mix the spices through, then add two eggs. If the mixture is still hot, the eggs will cook, so you might want to let it sit for a while when you first take it off the stove:

And finally, add three quarters of a cup of milk:

Aaaaaand mix it all through:

And pour it all into the pan:

And stick it in the oven for an hour:

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, cake:

After an hour in the oven, stab it a couple of times with a toothpick to make sure it's cooked:

After 5 minutes or so, haul it out of the tin and cool on a wire rack. When it's cooled, peel the baking paper off and stick it on a plate:

And it's time to get icing!! Here's what you need for the vienna cream frosting:

Start with 125g butter. Chop it and stick it in a small mixing bowl:

Beat the butter until it's as white as possible:

Then take 3/4 cup of icing sugar:

And beat it into the butter:

Then take a washed lemon and your trusty Microplane zester. Or, you know, a grater. Either way:

And go crazy!:

Mmmmm, zesty...

Take a teaspoon of the zest and dump it into the bowl:

And two tablespoons of lemon juice:

And give it a quick pulse with the beaters. It'll look a bit curdled, but don't worry - all will be well in the end!:

Then take another 3/4 cup of icing sugar, and gradually beat that in too:

Once it's all mixed together, dump it onto the cake:

Spread the icing across the cake. It'll probably end up thicker in the middle where the cake has a tendency to sink slightly:

Then lightly dust the top of the cake with ground cinnamon:

Then sit back and marvel at how purdy it is:

Check out the lemon zest in the icing!!!

And when you've finished marvelling at it, get a knife, cut it into chunks and try to stop at just one piece!!!

Enjoy!

K xx :)