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!

FAIL - PROOF HOMEMADE YOGURT (with video!)

Eevery single time I've shared my yogurt photos and videos on my Instagram account,my inbox would get jammed with recipe requests. As much as I would love to send each one of you my method for it, it's literally not possible to reply to individual recipe queries these days. Only after reading all of those messages did I realize that a lot us have struggled or have been struggling with making such a healthy,easy and favourite recipe of ours at home.

This method is super simple and it has give me consistent results every single time. I also use another method to make it but that's for another post,maybe. Currently, this method is the one I am totally obsessed with! It gives you that picture perfect, upside down-able yogurt!

The only point where you could go wrong is with the milk temperature before adding the in the starter. The milk should be just barely warm,like a baby's bath water. You might think it's too cool for the starter to work but it will. It should be that temperature where you would like to soak your feet in after a long day at work,warm but barely so. If you have a thermometer, it should be between 40-50F. Stay on the higher end because when you add the starter,it will bring the temperature down.

Talking about starters. If you are like me, just buy a tub of yogurt which has 'Active Live Cultures' written on it.Just use that. But if you are like those lucky ones who can get hold of some homemade yogurt,use that. Both works... the same way! Thanks Biana for sharing your method with the rest of us!

FAIL - PROOF HOMEMADE YOGURT
Makes 4 cups

Ingredients:
1 litre whole milk
50 grams yogurt

Method: You can watch the video to see the process I have explained in detail. Preheat the oven to 100 F and turn it off. Place the wrapped yogurt container in it and let it set. It can take anywhere between 6-8 hours. If you do not have an oven, you can leave it outside the oven in a warm spot.

Ian and Zara love yogurt! It's one of their snack. Ian gets super excited every time I tell him I made some at home. This is a very easy way to make extremely creamy and thick yogurt at home. I hope you give it a try and if you do, don't forget to report back! :-)

BIRTHDAY UPDATES !

So here I am,almost 2.5 months after my last post. Where did I go? I was right here,still cooking and taking photos and literally living every minute on my Instagram account. So all of you who miss reading the updates/ recipes here,head on over to Instagram and click 'follow'! It's been really really busy all these weeks with the house shifting, house parties and travel. I could really squeeze in time to come and post recipes here but I chose not to. To keep my sanity in check. This week,there's nothing much going on for me, so that's how I finally reached here!

This is going to be a short post and I am going to share a few pictures from Ian's 5th birthday (July 22) & Zara's 1st birthday (September 16). They both were 100% homemade parties. Ian's party was barely a week before we moved and Zara's was about a month and a half after we moved. Her party was our deadline to set up our new home. Since we moved in from a single bedroom condominium to a 5 bedroom house, we had TONS to do. We are still shopping for stuff and I have no idea when this will end :) Anyway, I hope you enjoy their party photos!

Also in the meantime,this blog baby of mine turned 9 years old on October 8th. To be honest, that totally skipped my mind since I was busy with other things.But. There's something new brewing up and I will be making an announcement here this week! If you scroll through my Instagram profile, you can find that out! :-)

Ian's 5th Birthday Party Menu

Paw Patrol themed Chocolate Layer Cake
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream

Greek Chicken Wings

7 layer Greek Dip with Pita Chips

Mint & Orange Salad with Orange Blossom & Honey Dressing

Chicken Shawarma

Homemade Grilled Flatbread

Paneer Mousakka

Chipotle Hummus 

Garlic Sauce

Gooseberry - Mint Soda

Zara's 1st Birthday Party Menu

Floral Vanilla Layer Cake
Brigadieros
Chocolate drizzled Shortbread Cookies
Strawberry Oatmeal Bars
Petite Floral Vanilla Cupcakes

Firecracker Chicken Meatballs

Maharaja

Caramelized Onion Dip

Curried Chicken Dip

Sanna's

Kashmiri Chicken

Ghee Rice

Egg stew

Pork Vindaloo

Gooseberry -Mint Soda (on repeat due to demand!)

Carrot Lemonade

GARLIC & BASIL PULL APART BREAD

This post is sponsored by Dorot but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.

It hasn't been that busy here as I thought it would be when a baby arrives. It could be because it's my second time around. Things have been really smooth and the siblings are bonding very well! Even though Amma insists on me taking some time off from the kitchen, it's something I find very hard to do. So whenever I can, I sneak into the kitchen and try my hand at something new since Amma has all our day to day meals covered.

Have you ever hoped that you could find some awesome herbs in frozen paste form that you can just pop it out of the case,straight into whatever you are making? I never really cared for the ginger garlic pastes that we get to buy at our local Indian stores because they don't smell or taste anything like it. Whereas Dorot products are really really good. So flavourful and super easy to use!

They have Crushed Garlic, Chopped Basil, Chopped Parsley,Glazed Onions, Chopped Dill,Chopped Cilantro, Chopped Chili, Crushed Ginger in their product line. As a garlic lover, I was attracted to their Crushed Garlic.Each cube holds one clove of garlic. Just pop it out and use it as you wish. You can find their products at any Trader Joes (one of my most favourite places to shop!) & Whole Foods. The product was easy to find and you can find them at the frozen section of Trader Joes or Whole Foods. Dorot has been kind enough to offer you guys a discount on your purchase. Click here to avail the offer!

Amma loves a good garlic bread! So when I spotted this recipe on Rachel's blog, I instantly bookmarked it to try it that night. It turned out really fluffy, soft and tasty! We enjoyed it with a warm bowl of Roasted Red Pepper & Tomato Soup. It was an amazing meal!

GARLIC & BASIL PULL APART BREAD
Makes one 10 inch loaf

Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups bread flour
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1 1/2 teaspoon dried basil, divided
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
2 + 6 cloves garlic, ground to a fine paste,divided
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup + 2 tablespoons very warm water
1/4 cup milk
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted & divided
6 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Method: In the bowl of your stand mixer, mix together flour, sugar, yeast, 1/2 teaspoon dried basil,2 cloves of garlic & salt. With the machine running on low speed, add in the oil, water & milk. Mix on low - medium speed until the dough comes together and leaves the sides of the bowl, about 4 minutes. Leave it to double in size,covered,in an oiled bowl.
Once doubled in size, punch down the dough and roll it out on a lightly floured surface to a 12 x 20 inch rectangle.
Smear 3 tablespoons of melted butter, remaining 6 cloves of garlic paste,1 teaspoon dried basil and sprinkle the cheese over it. Cut the dough into 6 rectangles and stack them up. Cut the stack into 6 squares and place them in a lightly greased 10 inch loaf tin.Cover the bread dough and let it rise for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350 F.Once the dough has risen, drizzle the remaining 1 tablespoon of melted butter over it and bake the bread for 30-35 minutes. Enjoy while warm !

You can find a $1 off discount coupon to use towards any of the Dorot garlic and herb products,here!