Tag: Festive Cooking

Gingerbread House: Top Tips

bakesbymegukLeave a comment

This year I challenged myself to make my best gingerbread house yet, and I think I succeeded (feedback from my family, not just me patting myself on the back). This took me about 4.5 days of baking, decorating & building – and I have 0 regrets about how I used that time. In fact, I think this is probably my favourite way to spend the days up to Christmas. It’s no surprise I love being in the kitchen, so getting to spend 4 days solid working on something while watching ‘Are You Scared?’ on YouTube (my idea of festive viewing) is kind of my dream. Plus it makes for the best Christmas decoration.

My Process

My process for making a gingerbread house starts with trawling Pinterest for inspiration – this was my board for this year. I landed on doing a Victorian style house with bay windows, a balcony and double roof. I used this house to model mine on. The next stage is I give the pictures to my engineer dad & he magically turns it into working templates. I have very little knowledge about how this part works…

Next I move onto the baking. This year I made a double batch of this BBC Good Food gingerbread recipe – the raw dough is so good I’m surprised any of it got baked up. I roll the dough about 0.5cm thick (some key pieces a little thicker for stability) & use a sharp knife to cut out around the templates.

After baking the dough expands a little so, once cooled completely, I flatten off and trim the edges using a microplane grater, checking against the templates. This makes sure the pieces will fit together flush when it comes to building. The baking & trimming took me a full day.

The next step is to decorate. For this I used 1 batch of royal icing from the same BBC Good Food recipe. I used gelatine leaves as window panes by attaching them behind the window with royal icing. Once these had dried enough, I flipped the pieces at did aaaall the royal icing decoration – this took me about 4/5 hours. I left these to dry for a few hours. I keep my royal icing fresh by clipping the top of the bag and covering the tip with cling film.

To build, I used royal icing on a chopping board. I first but up the walls, then left it to set overnight before attaching the roof. Then added all the external decoration pieces & candy canes. PSA: Candy canes are very hard to saw without shattering… I used chocolate buttons to tile the roof – this can only be done once the roof gingerbread pieces are fully set. I added a few icicle details & then filled in the board with royal icing (I had to make a second, slightly thinner batch to do this).

And there you have it – a mere 4.5 days of work later – a Gingerbread House! The funny thing is, I don’t really like gingerbread… So now it’s up to my family to eat it all.

The finished house – fairy lights and all

Top Tips

So, having spent days on this thing I thought I’d share some of the things I’ve learnt along the way to help you make a successful custom gingerbread house:

  1. Spend time on the templates. It’s worth spending a little extra time on these to make sure it works, as this is hard to fix when it comes to assembly. You could even make a card mock-up to check everything fits.
  2. It’s better to cook your gingerbread a teeny bit longer than normal to make sure it’ll cool hard all the way through. I added 1-2 mins to the cooking time.
  3. Always shave the sides of your gingerbread. Gingerbread expands slightly meaning it’ll be bigger than the templates and make not fit together properly. I used a microplane grater to do this.
  4. Always make a few extra gingerbread fingers. These came in really handy this year when I realised one of my walls was too short. I propped it up on my extra gingerbread – which really saved the house.
  5. Decorate your pieces before attaching – this is much easier horizontal than it is vertical.
  6. When putting together the walls, pipe a little extra icing along the inside of the join for extra stability.
  7. I had to use dowels on the back of the pieces making up the tallest point, as these started to bend slightly as they got stale. So if you have any extra tall/thin pieces be sure to stabilise then using dowels & royal icing to attach.
  8. ‘Snow’ covers a multitude of sins – if something’s gone slightly wrong or a seam looks a little dodgy, cover it in royal icing and act like that was always meant to be there.
Christmas pasta bake

Christmas Leftovers Pasta Bake

bakesbymeguk2 Comments

Christmas dinner is the meal that keeps on giving. I don’t know if your family do the same but we will make a meal big enough to feed at least double the number of people actually coming for Christmas day (there was over half a Turkey left this year). So the fun challenge over the next few days is finding ways to transform the leftovers into something completely different so it doesn’t feel like we’re eating the same meal over and over. This year I had the craving for pasta (what’s new?) so I though of a leftovers pasta bake which uses the turkey/stuffing and some cheese board leftovers. A pasta bake/mac and cheese/Christmas roast crossover. The most ambitious crossover event in history.

Christmas Leftovers Pasta Bake

Serves 6 | 30 mins

Ingredients

450g short pasta (fusilli, penne, rigatoni – I used some Christmas Pasta like this one)

50g butter

2 cloves garlic, crushed

50g plain flour

700ml milk

6 tbsp grated parmesan

500g turkey & stuffing (or other meats) leftovers, roughly chopped – I used turkey, chestnut & sausage stuffing

~100-200g leftover hard cheese grated (cheddar, Gouda or Gruyere would work well – something with flavour that will melt)

Juice 1/2 lemon

150ml 1/2 fat creme fraiche

1-2 slices day old sourdough (or whatever bread you have), processed into breadcrumbs

1 tsp olive oil

Method:

  1. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil, add your pasta & cook until al dente (you may want to do this after you’ve started on the sauce, depending on the cooking time for the pasta)
  2. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the crushed garlic & cook until lightly golden.
  3. Add the flour & cook stirring continuously for 1-2 mins
  4. Add the milk gradually, whisking until smooth between each addition. If you have any leftover gravy, you could also add this to the sauce as this point for some extra flavour.
  5. Cook this, mixing continuously, for a few minutes until thickened. Stir in some pepper, 4tbsp of grated parmesan & a few handfuls of your grated hard cheese of choice (make sure there is enough leftover to sprinkle over the bake at the end).
  6. Add the pasta, turkey meat/stuffing & creme fraiche to the sauce. The creme fraiche is needed to cut through what is otherwise a very rich dish.
  7. Season this to taste with salt, pepper & lemon juice.
  8. Turn your grill onto high heat.
  9. Pour the pasta into an 30cm x 20cm baking dish. Sprinkle the grated hard cheese over the top. In a separate bowl stir together the breadcrumbs, remaining 2tbsp of parmesan and 1tsp olive oil. Spread this mix over to the top of the pasta.
  10. Grill for a few minutes until the cheese is melted & the breadcrumbs have browned. Keep an eye on this as it can burn very quickly.
Frangipane Mince Pie

Frangipane Mince Pies

bakesbymeguk2 Comments

This is the perfect festive pie for mince pie lovers & haters (but bad for almond haters). This combines a mince pie & a Bakewell – which is a great way to get mince pie haters to love mince pies, or at least a version of a mince pie. This elevates a mince pie from an afternoon snack to a fully fledged dessert when served warm with heaps of double cream.

This combines an extra short, melt in the mouth shortcrust, sweet mince meat & a buttery frangipane. An unbeatable combo. Speaking of melt in the mouth pastry, I’m gonna share with you the well kept secrets of keeping your pastry as short & crumbly as possible:

  1. Keep it as cold as possible
  2. Handle it as little as possible to stop gluten developing

Name a better way to get into the Christmas spirit than baking (& subsequently eating) a batch of these while watching a Christmas movie.

Frangipane Mince Pies

Makes 12 | 40 mins prep / 30 mins cooking (+2hour min chilling)

Ingredients

Pastry:

175g chilled unsalted butter

250g (+1tbsp) plain flour

1tbsp caster sugar

Pinch of salt

1 egg yolk

2-3tbsp ice cold water

Frangipane:

125g butter, room temp

125g caster sugar

2 eggs, room temp

125g ground almond

30g plain flour

Pies:

12tsp mince meat

Method

  1. Cut the butter for the pastry into cubes, toss with 1tbsp of plain flour and put in the freezer for 5 minutes.
  2. Add the remaining flour, sugar & salt to a food processor & pulse to combine. Add the cold butter and pulse to form a breadcrumb-like texture. (See the note if you are making the pastry by hand)
  3. Add in the egg yolk & blend to combine. Then add the water in small amounts, blending to form a dough that sticks together when squished in your hand. You want to add as little water as possible to reach this stage, so add it in stages.
  4. Tip the dough onto a work surface and kneed very lightly until it just comes together to form a ball. Wrap in cling film and chill for at least 2 hours.
  5. In the meantime, make the frangipane. Beat the butter & sugar together. Then add the eggs 1 at a time, beating well between each addition.
  6. Add the ground almonds and sift in the flour and stir to combine
  7. Preheat your oven to 180°C/160°C fan
  8. Remove the pastry from the fridge & cut in half, return half to the fridge.
  9. Roll the other half out on a lightly floured surface to just under 0.5cm thick. Cut into rings big enough to line your muffin tin.
  10. Push the pastry disks into the tin. Use a small ball of pastry offcuts to push the dough into the bottom of the tin & into the edges. Squish any offcuts together & return to the fridge
  11. Repeat with the other half of dough & any offcuts (don’t re-roll the dough more than once, after this it’ll start to get tough).
  12. Once all 12 holes are lined, start on the filling. Spoon in 1tsp of mince meat into the base of each pastry case & spread to an even layer. Spoon on ~1tbsp of frangipane on top & spread flat (this should be very close to the top of the pastry case)
  13. Bake for 25-30 mins until golden.
  14. Dust with icing sugar & serve warm with heaps of double cream

Note: To make your pastry without a food processer, combine the flour, salt & sugar in a bowl. Add in the ice cold butter and rub with your fingers to form a breadcrumb texture. Add in the egg yolk & stir with a palette knife until combined, then add water in small amounts & stir to form a dough that sticks together when squished.