GINGERBREAD HOUSE

This month really has been driving me crazy! It's usually my most favourite time of the year but this time, it's been too too busy. With so many events, we just don't have any time for personal stuff. We still haven't bought any gifts for each other, can you imagine! Luckily, the coming weekend if pretty slow,maybe we can hit the mall and buy some stuffs for the kids atleast.

I've never made a Gingerbread House before so I wanted to make it this year, especially for Ian. He has been asking for one since last year and I had promised him that we will make one this year. I planned to make it around Thanksgiving break and we did just that. We made the dough,rolled it out, cut out the pieces,baked it and built our own Gingerbread house and used up all the leftover candy from Halloween to decorate it. I even took pictures to share it here during the first week of December.

Then things happened. I mean, life happened. With everything that was going on, I just didn't feel  like sitting down with my laptop to talk about the house. It got pushed and pushed and finally today, I found sometime while Zara was napping to talk about it and share it with you all. Trust me, it's such an easy thing to do and it is really a fun thing to do with kids as well. This recipe for one of the best tasting gingerbread house comes from Beatrice Ojakangas.

GINGERBREAD HOUSE
Ingredients:
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup dark corn syrup or light molasses
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoon water

For assembly:
Royal Icing:
1lb powdered sugar
1-2 egg whites
1 teaspoon lemon juice or almond or vanilla extract

Method:
Gingerbread house: In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter, sugar, molasses,spices & baking soda until smooth. Add flour and water and mix to form a stiff dough. Wrap and chill for 30 minutes or until firm.

Preheat oven to 375F.

Gingerbread house templates: 
Front & Back of the house -Two rectangles 3 by 5 inches
Roof - Two rectangles 3 by 5 1/2 inches
Ends of the house - Two pieces, 3 inches wide at the base, 3 inches to the roof line and slanted to a peak 5 1/2 inches from the bottom.

Roof and sides of the entryway - Four smaller rectangles,  1 1/2 by 1 inch
Front of the entryway - One piece 2 inches wide at the base, 1 1/2 inches to the roof line and slanted to a peak 2 1/2 inches from the bottom.

Roll the chilled dough onto a parchment paper and cut out the pieces using a template made from the measurements given above. Leave the pieces intact and remove the excess dough. Bake for about 15 minutes until the dough feels firm. Place the templates over the pieces and trim if necessary. Do this while the cookie is hot.

Royal Icing:  Mix all the ingredients together using a hand mixer until the mixture is smooth and is pipeable. Transfer it to a piping bag and use as needed. Cover unused icing as it will dry up. If you need to thin it out, use lemon juice.

Assembling: Decorate the pieces with royal icing and let it harden, about 10 minutes. Start building the house by gluing the front and back and sides using the icing. Hold it for a few seconds till it dries up. Then attach the roof and then continue to build then entryway. Don't rush, take your time.

Even though it looks like a lot of work, it isn't. Make your templates the day before and even the cookie dough. Next day, bake and build the house. It will be one of the most memorable things you will be doing this holiday season for sure!

GIVEAWAY(S) !! CAKE, COOKIES & some more!

Those of you who have been reading this blog of mine, for a while, will clearly know my favourite month of any year! It's December! Even though we are just in November and when people are gearing up for Thankgiving, I'm waiting for the day after Thanksgiving so that the FM stations starts playing Christmas Carols 24/7 ! I am waiting for it to snow when I listen to 'I'm dreaming of a White Christmas' since I've always pictured Christmas to be full of snow on evergreens and sloping roofs of houses. Cannot blame me, blame the Christmas cards we get in India ;-)

Anyway, I'm back ,after almost a one month break. So much happened in between. I got back to Minneapolis on 19th October and the very next day we got the keys to our own Condo in Downtown Minneapolis :-) Then the remaining days of October was busy spent packing up, teaching a class of 25 at the same place where I taught before I left for India in July & finally moving to our new place on 28th October. From 28th till yesterday, it was just unpacking and days without internet. I must say, I never missed being online, catching up with my friends because I was so busy planning where to place our new furniture, crockery etc in our brand new home! The only thing that was giving me company was F.R.I.E.N.D.S. I love that show! I really wish they ran forever! :)

Now, let's get back to the topic, shall we? Well, some of you have baked it at home beofre and I have baked it many many times including last month for a Magazine shoot. That's the best thing to bake during Christmas.Any guesses what that thing could be? No? It's my Christmas Fruit cake, people! Yes, I am giving away a 6 inch Ria-baked Christmas Fruit Cake for ONE lucky reader of mine! Don't forget to make a claim for it because I can honestly say, that's the best Fruit Cake you will ever ever eat! My Amma, a hater of Fruit Cakes claims it to be the best :-) So that's going to be Giveaway no.1 :-)

Hmmm, now since it's gonna be Christmas time and we all since atleast some of us love Gingerbread Man, I'm giving away a dozen of  Ria-baked Gingerbread Man, yes with full decor on them to another ONE lucky reader of mine. That's Giveaway no.2 :-)

                                                        (Photo courtesy -Anu Menon)
So a few months back, Anu and I were chatting away on Twitter and as we discussed life and other things, she asked me if she could join me in my monthly giveaways (which I have not been doing for a while!).I was so happy about the offer and I instantly agreed! As you all know, I am a big fan of everything handmade and all things homemade! Anu knew that and therefore offered me an IPad Crochet cover which she stitched to be given away for my dear readers! How cool is that? Very cool! So that's going to be the Giveaway no. 3 :-)

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For entering the giveaway :
1. Tell me your best memories of Christmas or even the month of December! Is it your wedding anniversary? Is it your birthday? My Grandmother's birthday was on December 25 th! :) Whatever it is, tell me...don't worry, your chances of winning the above mentioned 3 things does NOT depend on the length of your stories, but definitely it's content :) So write away!

2. Like my page on Facebook  and leave another comment saying so, which gives you an extra chance to win! :-) [ I have to get something cleared out here after reading a comment below.This is just for pure fun, this option! You can totally skip it. I had double thoughts while putting this up but went again just to see how many of you actually do that! If it were for me, I wouldn't like a page just because I want to win a cake or a cookie but only if I really like that page's extension on Facebook. For me, in many cases, I never realised that my favourite blogs had a page on Facebook until they mentioned it on their blogs mostly during giveaways! It did help me at many instances because I get to interact with the author directly over their pages on FB :-)So please decide how you want things to be :-)No hard feelings and no way are you gonna lose your chance to win something I am giving away! I am doing this for you and it will always always always be for you, I am not expecting anything in return :-) This is not a camouflage to get more followers :-)  I did think of taking off this option after reading the comment but decided not to do so because I didn't want to sit back and pretend as if I never wrote a thing like that! I hate pretense! :-)]

3. Now,tell me, what would you really like to win! I have to pick 3 winners and I'm  hoping that it would help me :-)

This giveaway is only for the US residents (rather for an address in US, so you can win it for a cousin, friend or even a pet!)  :-) This giveaway ends on December 10th.

ALL THE BEST!

GINGERBREAD MAN FOR 400,000 HITS!

There is a saying,'When it rains,it pours!' and it is no different in my case! My blog just had it's 400,000 hits (100,000 more in 1 month and 5 days!) and when I am still taking time for it to sink in, I get this email from Susan & Abraham  of Chako's Kitchen saying that my HoneyComb cake has been selected as one of the 30 Best Recipes of 2010. This is what they  had to say, 'Ria Mathew of Ria’s collection is arguably the most talented baker and blogger from India. Currently residing in US, this gifted lady whips out heavenly cakes, cookies and innovative sweets and savories and her food pictures are talk of the town. So it is but natural that her entry for the Best Recipes of 2010 is indeed one the best recipe from her. This marvelous looking Honey Comb Cake, will woo you with its rich and perfect look and I bet you cannot help but drool over her culinary creations !' (taken with permission from Chako's Kitchen). That one piece of news has kept me smiling for the whole day!


Now let's get back to some little bit of baking that I had been doing the whole of last week!I must say that I was lucky to have some leftovers from the weekend parties to feed the two of us those days, or else, I would have gone crazy baking ,cooking ,cleaning,loading the dishwasher (I hate it!) , decorating the cookies, controlling the temperature indoors to prevent the frosting from melting, answering all the queries I get in my inbox (E-mail and FB which I LOVE!) on an hourly basis mostly regarding the Fruit Cake 1 & Fruit Cake 2, answering to SOS IM's on Google Talk and FB and status updating on FB :) plus the packing for our holidays!

When I asked my niece's what they would like me to bring over for X'mas, they said, they wanted Sugar cookies and Gingerbread man . Okay, I have never made both of them. So I hunted for recipes like a crazy old blind woman who hunts for her lost needle in a haystack (eh? Did  I just say that? ).That's exactly when Aparna had to post her recipe for this fabulous Gingerbread Man and I told her, I think I'm going to make her recipe, which I did :-) I am so glad that I made it because it is so good! I couldn't stop munching on them while I was decorating the cookies. I had excuses to give...to myself.


Excuse #1 : How would the Gingerbread Man (GM)  look like without it's head?
Excuse #2 : How would the GM look like with it's head and not it's arm?
Excuse #3 : How would the GM look like with it's head and arm intact but not  it's right leg?
Excuse#4 : How would the GM look like with it's head, arms and right leg intact but....
Yeah I made good use of all the 'probabilty' stuff I learnt in my class 12.!

Now we are back home after the holidays and I am having some major 'post Christmas' blues.So before I begin to talk about it, why don't you all check out this fabulous cookie's recipe?

EGGLESS GINGERBREAD MAN
Original Recipe from Taste.com
Adapted version from Aparna. I made some adjustments to her recipe.


Ingredients:
1 stick/113 g unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2c loosely packed brown sugar/grated jaggery
1/2 c honey
2 1/2 c all purpose unbleached flour (regular maida will also work)
1 tbsp dry ginger powder
1/2 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg powder
1/4 tsp black pepper powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 350F/180C.Line a baking sheet (s) with parchement/butter paper.
Sieve the dry ingredients together and keep aside.
Cream butter and brown sugar/jaggery till pale and creamy.Add in the honey and cream till fluffy.
Add in the dry ingredients and beat till it comes together like rubbles.
Gather the dough together with your hand and knead it lightly, with your fingertips and form a smooth ball.
Flatten it, clingwrap it and leave it in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
Dust your work surface and a rolling pin with flour, lightly.
Roll out the dough to 1/4" thickness and cut out the gingerbread man.
Place them on a lined baking sheet and bake for 8-10 mins depending on the size of your cookie.
Once baked, take them out and let them cool on the sheet for 5 mins.
When they are completely cooled, store them in an airtight tin.

Verdict: This was my first time baking a gingerbread cookie and I must say, this will be baked for the coming years during Christmas season. I love the spices that goes into the cookie and the smell of it gives you a warmth that no other season can bring!