Gingerbread Castle Cake Food

GINGERBREAD CAKE

Steps:

• Lightly butter a 9 by 13 by 2-inch cake pan and line the bottom with a piece of parchment or wax paper. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the oil, sugar, molasses, and crystallized ginger. Add the eggs and whisk until smooth.
• In another large bowl, whisk together the flour, ground ginger, cinnamon, salt, and cloves. Whisk the molasses mixture into the flour mixture until evenly combined.
• In a small saucepan, bring the water to a boil. Remove from the heat and stir in the baking soda. Whisk the hot water into the batter until just combined. Transfer the batter into the prepared pan. Bake the cake in the center of the oven, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool the cake in the pan on a rack. Cut into squares and serve with whipped cream or ice cream.

GINGERBREAD HOUSE CAKE

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line two 9-by-13-inch pans with parchment paper; coat with cooking spray. Prepare the cake mixes as directed; divide between the pans and bake as directed. Let cool, then unmold.
• Stack the 2 cakes with chocolate frosting in between. Mark the middle with toothpicks as shown, then cut in half crosswise. Stack the 2 halves with frosting in between to make a 4-layer cake. Freeze 30 minutes.
• Put the cake on cardboard with a short side facing you. Mark the middle with toothpicks as shown. To form the roof, shave off the top 2 layers of cake at an angle, starting 1/2 inch to the right and left of the toothpicks.
• Crumble about 2 cups of the cake trimmings and mix with just enough chocolate frosting so it sticks together. Moisten your fingers, then gently mold the top of the cake to form the tip of the roof.
• Cut the graham crackers by scoring with a small serrated knife, then snapping along the scored line. You will need 16 graham cracker squares, 4 large triangles and 2 small triangles to cover the cake.
• Cover the cake completely with the remaining chocolate frosting. Gently press the graham crackers into the frosting to cover the whole cake except the angled roof.
• Cut 1 whole graham cracker into 4 small rectangles for the chimney. Insert into the roof as shown, making sure the tops of the graham crackers are aligned.
• Arrange the cereal on the roof in rows, starting from the bottom and working your way up; overlap the rows so they look like shingles.
• Decorate the house with vanilla frosting, candies and sanding sugar. To make icicles, pipe a dot of frosting, then drag the pastry bag downward. Top the chimney with cotton candy. Dust with confectioners' sugar.

GINGERBREAD CAKE WITH CARAMEL BISCUIT ICING

Steps:

• Measure the milk and treacle into a saucepan (grease the measuring spoon with a little oil first and the treacle will easily slide off). Bring to a gentle simmer and stir until combined, then set aside to cool. Meanwhile, grease 3 x 20cm loose-bottomed cake tins with a little oil and line the bases with baking parchment (if you don't have enough cake tins, see tip). If the tins are any shallower than 4cm, line the sides with a deep collar too. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.
• Measure the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, sugar and spices into a large bowl, then add ½ tsp fine salt. Mix the dry ingredients together with a large whisk; if there are any large lumps of sugar, squeeze these through your fingers until you have an even, sandy-textured mixture.
• In a jug, whisk the oil, buttermilk, eggs, rum and vanilla. Add the milk and treacle mixture, and mix well. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, and whisk into a smooth batter. Divide between the tins and bake for 25-30 mins until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cakes comes out clean. You may have to swap the cakes over to cook evenly, but don't do this until they've had at least 20 mins cooking. Cool the cakes in their tins for 10 mins, then transfer to a wire rack, peel off the parchment and leave to cool completely. Once cooled, you can wrap the sponges in cling film and store in a cool place for 4 days, or freeze for up to 2 months - the texture and flavour will be all the better for it.
• To make the icing, put the butter and half the icing sugar in a large bowl. Mash together roughly with a spatula, then whizz with an electric hand whisk until smooth. Add the remaining icing sugar, the cream cheese, vanilla bean extract and biscuit spread. Mix again until smooth and evenly mixed. Transfer half the icing to another bowl and set aside. Use the remaining icing to stack the cakes and cover the entire outside in a thin layer - don't worry about making the cake look too neat at this stage, as any crumbs trapped in the icing will be covered in the final coat. Chill the cake for 30 mins and the remaining icing for 20 mins (remove the icing from the fridge 10 mins before the cake to soften a little).
• When the icing on the cake is firm, remove it from the fridge and use the remaining icing to cover the cake. Smooth the sides using a palette knife, but leave peaks and dips on top for your snow scene. Top the cake generously with desiccated coconut, a dusting of sieved icing sugar and some edible glitter, if you like, then decorate the top and sides with gingerbread shapes (see tip). If you're not eating the cake within a few hours, store it in the fridge, but bring back to room temperature before serving. Wlll keep for 2 days.

GINGERBREAD CASTLE

Steps:

• GINGERBREAD CASTLE:.
• **For my gingerbread structures, I like to build their general shape out of cardboard first. This is a great way to address any structural issues before it's too late. They also give you an amazing stencil to use to cut out your cookie shapes and then later they're great for preventing any mess when you're pouring candy glass windows into your finished cookies.
• In a stand mixer beat butter and sugar until creamy, add molasses and eggs. In another bowl, mix all dry ingredients. Once done slowly mix into wet ingredients and stir until dough ball forms. Wrap softball sized portions in foil and chill until ready to use.
• Heat oven to 360 degrees fahrenheit.
• Line cookie sheets with parchment and roll dough directly onto cookie sheets. Using flour to prevent sticking. Cut out shapes using homemade stencils and save scraps for the next sheet.
• Baking time varies depending on how large your cookie is. Large cookies can take 18 minutes and small decorative pieces can be done in as little as 5 minutes. So keep an eye on them. Once baked, remove from oven (and here's my secret to getting a smooth cookie -- immediately after removing a batch from the oven, place a sheet of parchment over the top and using a slightly smaller baking sheet press, slide and swivel the smaller sheet on top until perfect. Allow cookies to cool before removing and place on paper towels. Do any candy glass windows BEFORE assembling.
• Advice and pointers: Assembling is my personal favorite part, but be sure to have a lot of patience and go slowly. Don't let go of any pieces unless you're positive they're secure and if you're unsure, use various kitchen items as supports -- things get pretty jenky in my kitchen during this process. Know that cookies will break here and there, make extra of critical pieces if you have the time and keep in mind you're doing something fun and when things go wrong, it's just a lesson for the future -- at least that's what I tell myself when I'm facing a kitchen catastrophe :D.
• CANDY GLASS:.
• Mix sugar, water, corn syrup and tartar in a large pot on medium/high heat. Stir constantly until mixture begins to boil. Stop stirring and place candy thermometer on the edge of the pot with the temp gauge submerged into sugar syrup. This part takes FOREVER (20 or so minutes) so set up a chair next to the stove and grab a magazine/book/laptop and keep an eye on the thermometer. Allow to heat to 300 degrees and immediately remove from heat. Stir and mix in two drops blue food coloring. Have cookies clean and resting face up on a very flat surface covered in a aluminum foil. Use your cardboard stencil over your cookie and pour candy glass into your cutouts using a bent tea spoon or small ladle. Once poured, immediately lift stencil off and clear any sugar strands that occur.
• Advice and pointers: This is one of those things you should set a lot of time aside for and prepare yourself with a lot of patience. Having a plate warmer to set the pot of hot sugar on near your workstation is a great way to give yourself a bit more time to work with each batch. Depending on how many windows you have to do, you'll be needing to make several batches. As soon as one batch begins to harden, you need to cut your losses and discard it (I've learned this the hard way). This stuff is also INSANELY hot so be very careful and make sure no pets, children or other obstacles are around when working with candy glass!
• ROYAL ICING for GINGERBREAD CASTLE:.
• ( I made this batch probably 6 times throughout the project).
• In a stand mixer beat egg whites till frothy and incorporate sugar until smooth. Then mix in the rest of the ingredients little bits at a time until the color you desire is achieved.
• Advice and pointers: Because you're using raw egg whites and salmonella is a risk, always use fresh eggs from a reliable source and don't allow unused frosting to sit out for more than an hour or so. Any unused frosting can be covered with a damp towel to prevent drying and retain freshness. Keep in mind the longer you work with a single batch the darker the color will become, so when initially mixing, keep that in mind.
• ROYAL ICING FOR HOLLY, WREATHS AND CHRISTMAS TREES:.
• Using any used gingerbread dough, cut out and shape christmas trees and bake. Using a small star tip (I actually bent mine with a small hammer to get the perfect shape) pipe royal icing all over giver bread and decorate with sugar beads which you'll then need to tediously paint.

FAVORITE OLD FASHIONED GINGERBREAD

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9-inch square pan.
• In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the egg, and mix in the molasses.
• In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. Blend into the creamed mixture. Stir in the hot water. Pour into the prepared pan.
• Bake 1 hour in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in pan before serving.

GINGERBREAD/GINGERBREAD CAKE

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350°.
• Grease and flour an 8" square pan (or use Pam).
• The ingredients listed under "cream together" should be added one ingredient at a time, creaming in between each addition.
• When you have finished adding/creaming all the liquid ingredients, keep beating the liquid mixture, folding in the dry mixture, alternating with the 2/3 cup sour milk.
• Once everything is mixed in, pour the batter into the prepared pan.
• Bake at 350°. Check for doneness by inserting a toothpick in the middle.
• When it comes out clean, it's done.