Alternative Ginger Persons
These are absolutely not gingerbread. They’re also not necessarily persons. They can be animals, vegetables or minerals, and a bad batch might make quite a good game of this.*
They are also what I would have made yesterday, if I’d either had the time or could afford the calories. Or both, of course, but to hope for such a concatenation would be greedy. The original recipe came out of a newspaper when I was a teenager, but I’ve copied it over at least twice since then, and even so the page is rather brown and spotty. It is however very easy to find in the sweet-baking notebook because there is a slimmish plastic bag slipped in next to it, containing the surviving highlights of forty years of ginger cookie templates. I’ve done horses, dogs, cats, birds, reindeer, hedgehogs, sailboats, convertibles (classics only), wedding cakes (sic), books, houses, ball gowns, washing machines . . . okay, sometimes my friends and I have celebrated some rather odd things. I’ve also done roses, but the stems are the very devil. You’re better off doing a bouquet, which you will have to sort with lines of frosting, but you still have to do a cut out thing with leaves and at the end you want to lacquer it and submit it to the Tate Modern, not have someone eat it in ten seconds, however many times they say ‘ooooh delicious.’** Stems, which is to say tails, is my excuse for never having essayed a sighthound of any variety. And all those long skinny legs. And the ears. Ugh. But now there’s only one dog birthday a year instead of three I may have to try it, some 17 August.
They taste delectable, they make excellent funny shapes***, people are usually thrilled with them† . . . and the dough is a sod to work with. But I like them so much I keep making them. Although not very often. When there’s something really important to celebrate.
1 c butter
1 ½ c white sugar
1 egg
Grated rind one orange
½ tsp orange essence
2 T molasses
3 c sifted all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger††
½ tsp cloves
Cream butter and sugar. Add egg, beat fluffy. Add orange rind, essence, and molasses, and beat till fluffy again. Mix flour and spices, stir in thoroughly.
Chill dough at least two hours, four is better. If you can remember, make the dough the night before.††† Then slice bits off and roll them to about 1/8th inch–certainly less than a quarter inch. I roll it out on the cookie sheet (therefore you don’t want one with tall sides) to save wear and tear, and then plonk my patterns down, cut around them, and peel off the scraps. This dough is, as you will have noticed, very buttery, and your cookie sheet doesn’t need greasing, although I usually use parchment paper so later on in the process the new cookies aren’t picking up a thin veneer of old crumbs–it also means you can leave the cookies in situ on the paper till they cool enough to solidify and are safe to move, but can keep the cookie sheet in action. 10-12 minutes 350°–or possibly 8-15, depending on your oven and how crisp you like them. You don’t want them soft, or they’ll break (especially if you’ve done something foolhardy with a pattern), but I personally feel you don’t want them to brown either.
There’s also the question of adding more flour to make the dough easier to work. I don’t find that the second batch, made out of the first batch’s scraps, are noticeably tougher for having been smushed together and rolled out again, although I tend to save the third go out from any dramatic presentation, in case they’ve begun to feel a little tired and emotional by then. I also don’t think a little flour on your hands and your rolling pin ever dimmed any cookie’s brilliance, but if you find yourself having to coat everything with flour you might be better off to put the rest of the dough back in the refrigerator again to recongeal. It does get sticky as it warms up.
And you really should decorate these. My books, ball gowns and washing machines certainly would have been a lot harder to identify without a few piped icing pages, frills and control panels. I use a slightly thinned down basic vanilla buttercream frosting, and I try to use it fairly liberally because the frosting goes a treat with these cookies. Raisins are traditional, but I feel they’re superfluous in this case. Oh, and if you break any legs, stems or tails, you can sometimes glue them as it were gingerly back together with frosting. But treat any such wounded veterans tenderly.
* * *
* Is it a spider? Is it a chandelier? Is it the kid next door, who started his own punk/goth rock group recently?
** And reindeer antlers made me wish I’d stuck to Christmas trees.
*** This may not be immediately obvious to anyone who hasn’t tortured herself with cut-out cookies, but not every rolled cookie dough takes fancy designs well.
† People had better be thrilled with them
†† Hmmph. They should be Alternative Cinnamon Persons
††† But don’t put it in the coldest part of your fridge, or you will not have rigorous and exhaustively chilled dough, you will have a glacier.
It’s the hellhounds’ birthday!
And we’re having duck and champagne.*
Well, they get a little. Or would. If they ever get around to, you know, eating. Sigh.
. . . Later. Okay, they’re eating. So, one more day down and 5475 to go (seventeen is a pretty good age for a dog. Or maybe they’ll suddenly DISCOVER EATING when they get old). SIGH.
However, I’m telling you the duck is lovely. And the champagne. Maybe they were waiting for the champagne. If they’re holding out for champagne, it’s going to be a long 5475 days.
* And stuffing and gravy! And I’m not going to weigh myself tomorrow!
In honour
. . . of a reissue of SUNSHINE we should certainly have a disgraceful recipe or twelve. So, here’s one.
The obvious answer to everything is chocolate so this is something that isn’t chocolate. It is, however, one of the recipes that haunts my dreams even when it’s getting on for two decades of dairy-free* since I last made it**. (I used to have a lot of cheesecake recipes. Sigh.) Note that while it calls for cranberry sauce, proper Seville orange marmalade also works a treat. But you do need something with a little bite and a little texture–not applesauce, for example, although apple chutney using a good crunchy sour cooking apple like Bramleys would probably perform handsomely.***
Hatbox Pie
So called because if you use a hatbox, there may be enough room. The original recipe tells you to make it in a 9″ pie plate. They are out of their tiny minds. Try a 9- or 10″ springform pan.
1 c all-purpose flour
1 c jumbo oats (ie large flakes uncooked oatmeal: the stuff goes by a lot of different names)
2/3 c dark brown sugar
½ tsp baking powder
½ c soft slightly salted butter
Mix together till crumbly. Reserve 1 cup, press the rest on bottom and sides of springform pan. Spread a generous 1 c cranberry sauce over crust; sprinkle the 1 cup crumbs over sauce and pat gently. 350° 20-25 minutes. Cool thoroughly.
½ c confectioner’s/icing sugar
2 T milk
1 ½ tsp GENUINE vanilla EXTRACT, no ersatz flavouring
3 oz soft cream cheese
2c sweetened whipped cream (so you use about 1 T sugar per cup when you beat it)
Blend all but whipped cream with electric mixer; fold cream in gently last. Spoon carefully over crust. Store in refrigerator. Have lots of friends over when you make it, because the crust will go soggy after a few days.
* * *
* Except when my idiot husband buys cheese and I idiotically eat it, which happens at least twice a decade, plus an ice-cream blow-out about once a year. I generally try to hold the latter on a night that Peter is playing bridge. When I say blow-out I mean blow-out and Peter gets a look on his face similar, I imagine, to the expression of a man who, looking out the window at the full moon, happens to glance back indoors again in time to see his wife dropping to all fours and growing fur. It’s only once a year! Not once a month!
** There are quite a few of these I admit. I used to lead a depraved life. But they should be good for some years’ worth of occasional blog entries anyway.
*** And there are some very good commercial Seville orange marmalades out there but if you’re going to use cranberry sauce, make your own. This is the recipe I use:
Cranberry-orange sauce
2 T cornstarch/corn flour
½ c water
½ c sugar
¾ c fresh orange juice–oranges never come in ¾ c size.^ So you can either eat the rest of the second one, or fill up the first with water to make ¾ c. If you do the latter however you must use the orange oil/essence. So if you haven’t got it, you’re going to have to steel yourself and open another orange. You can also experiment with using un- or less-diluted oj concentrate, but beware, if you use too much of it your sauce will be very liable to stick and burn.
The original recipe calls for 2T orange rind. When I’m making Hatbox Pie with it, I use more.
¼ tsp orange oil/essence NOT ‘flavouring’
2 c fresh or frozen cranberries. If frozen, use them frozen: don’t defrost first.
Combine cornstarch and ¼ c water in a pot big enough to hold everything, stir smooth. Then add sugar, orange juice^^, the rest of the water. Bring to boil, cook till thickened, stir in rind, oil, and cranberries. Cook just until cranberry skins pop. Cool.
I make this every year for Thanksgiving and/or Christmas. It’s good hot or cold. It’s also good at the bottom of a hatbox with whipped cream piled on top.
* * *
^ It’s a Communist plot. Hey, remember the Communists? In today’s world Senator Joseph McCarthy almost looks like a nice guy.+
+ Did you know the first time he ran for office he ran as a Democrat? (I’ve just been reading up on him on Wiki, because I can never remember whether it’s the senator or the baseball player who is Joe, not Joseph.) And lost. That was just before he joined the army so he would have a war record he could lie about. I did say almost a nice guy.
^^ As I’m proofing this I discover I typed ‘justice’. Orange justice. I like it. Especially after Joseph McCarthy.
Nether Wallop
. . . is the name of a restaurant. I am not joking.
http://www.diningatglyndebourne.com/restaurants/nether-wallop/
It’s buried on the Glyndebourne site somewhere why the restaurants in a small private opera house in East Sussex are named after three silly towns in Hampshire: Over, Middle and–best of all–Nether Wallop.
We had poached salmon and champagne at Nether Wallop tonight. And I watched all the other posh frocks going by. (Never mind the opera. The floor show at Glyndebourne is first-rate.) There was a middle-aged woman at the next table with great arm muscles. I wanted to ask her how she got them but I reluctantly decided against this. She also had a good tan.
Celebratory Food
Anyone who just conceivably might be feeling a trifle dry and sardonic about my poor neglected web site . . . we’re working on it. Blogmom–Sitemom?–only got the CHALICE cover art jpeg today because I only got it today so you see Blog/sitemom has been faster than a speeding dangerous laser ray getting the thumbnail changed here. And the site . . . well there have been various obstacles, not least trying to find a site design that is plain in the right way.* This too as of today has been accomplished. So keep watching this space.
Meanwhile, I think what we need is some Celebratory Food.
Vikkik has sent us:
White Choc and Apricot Brownies
2oz white choc (1)
2 eggs
3oz flour
2&1/2oz butter/margarine
8oz sugar
1/2 level tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
4oz dried apricots (chopped)
Heat oven to 350F/Gas Mark 4/ 180C.
Grease and flour an 8inch square cake tin
Melt choc and butter together
Whisk eggs and sugar together until light
Add the choc mixture
Sift in flour, baking powder and salt (2)and stir in
Add the apricots
Pour into cake tin and bake for around 30 mins (3)
(1) This is one case where I’d advise against using Green and Blacks - The only time I’ve ever had a disaster with this recipe (and this is my standard brownie recipe with white choc substituted for dark and apricots substituted for raisins) was earlier this year when I used C&B white choc, and it came out as a complete flat failure which I had to throw away…
(2) or just throw in without sifting, this works too ;-)
(3) my oven is fan assisted and they generally cook in about 20 mins
I do use Green and Blacks when I want white chocolate but I think white chocolate is tricky stuff anyway and maybe that day the weather was really heavy and humid and the chocolate was sulking and didn’t mix with the butter right, or maybe it took exception to your stirring, which in my experience needs to be very gentle and very thorough–far more of either than you need bother with with good old mellow black chocolate. I don’t know if anyone out there has more experience of white chocolate, or can recommend a reliably good-natured brand of the stuff.
Anyway this put me in mind of my white chocolate brownie . . . er . . . chocolate whiteys recipe. The original is from a cookbook you’ve heard from before: Rosie’s All Butter Fresh Cream Sugar-Packed No Holds Barred Baking Book by Judy Rosenberg. I am, however, shameless, and I wanted even more chocolate in mine, so that’s what I did. These aren’t even cake any more: they’re very squodgy.
8 T (1 stick) slightly salted butter
8 oz white chocolate
2 large eggs at room temperature
1 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla (maybe a scrap more. This does vary with your brand of chocolate, but you don’t know till you’ve tried. With Green and Blacks I use about 1 ¼ tsp)
1 c all-purpose white flour
Butter and flour a 9 inch square pan.
Melt butter in the top of a double boiler over simmering water. Break up the chocolate in small pieces and add gradually as the butter melts. Stir gently and thoroughly. It should be perfectly homogenous when you take it off the heat. If it shows signs of separating, stir it some more (gently).
Beat eggs vigorously. You can do it by hand but this is one of those cases where an electric mixer is probably better. Beat till frothy and then add sugar in a slow stream, beating like mad the whole time. Scrape down the sides of your bowl a lot too. Rosie says the whole process should take about two minutes. I never count, but it takes a while. But the result should ‘ribbon’ if you pour it off a spoon. Add the chocolate mixture in a very slow stream, with your electric mixer on low, if you’re using one. Once it’s all incorporated I take the mixer out and use a spoon for about ten seconds to sort of reassure myself it’s all gone together neatly.
Then mix in the flour. I stick to the spoon. You can use your electric mixer if you want.
Pour into the pan. 350° for about half an hour. The original recipe calls for 325°, which I find too low, but you certainly don’t want it more than 350°, so if you have an iffy oven, err on the low side. It’s not going to rise a lot, and it’ll probably be slightly hollow in the middle, but it will set and look done, and it shouldn’t be a solidified puddle in the bottom of the pan either. On the other hand, maybe I’m just strange, and I really like heavy dense things. Well, yes, I do, since you mention it. But feel free to experiment, and maybe raise the flour and lower the chocolate and make it a cake again.
And since I didn’t use it last time, and for any of the rest of you who saw the original, frowned in puzzlement, finally said ‘oops’ and passed on:
Melanie
I can’t believe it, but Jennie pointed out that my recipe for Pine nut rosemary shortbread that I posted under “Let them eat cake” didn’t include either pine nuts or rosemary. So fussy. ** So here’s the corrected ingredients list:
My Family Nearly Lynched Me For Making Something Fattening They Can’t Resist Pine Nut Rosemary Shortbread
1 3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup rice flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter (the good stuff)
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup toasted pine nuts
2 tablespoons minced fresh rosemary
zest of one lemon
I was originally going to post my chocolate-layer shortbread too, as additionally celebratory, but I’ve decided I’m fat enough for one evening. I’ll post it some other day. . . .
* Who invented the virtual dog-eared page corner as a cute design feature?
** Gods help you if you misidentify a plant. They send out the army, these guys.