Gingerbread christmas tree decorations

People bring various souvenirs from abroad. Last week I was on Christmas Fair in Prague and I bought there a bag with cookie-gingerbread molds. First I’ve tried molds of gingerbread christmas tree ball. Made them from two hemispheres sticked with icing. It is important to not let them grow too much during baking and they should be very thin – then it is very easy to stick them. I use the recipe for domino

Gingerbreads balls can be decorated with icing like traditional gingerbreads or dipped in loose icing and coated in sugar.

Beehives

I brought beehive forms from Prague. Today I used them for the first time. I’ve made dough basing on buttery biscuits and my filling was homemade, very thick egg-nog.

BEEHIVES

200 g cracked buttery biscuits

100 g soft butter

1/4 cup dark cocoa

1/4 grounded nuts

3 spoons of honey

egg-nog for filling

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and make dough until it’s hmogeneous. You can mix it with blender (I’ve made it like that). Fill foms with dough leaving 3 mm of free space. Make a hole in dough with sticky part of wooden spoon. Fill the hole with filling (in my case it was egg-nog). Form a circle of the dough and stick the bottom of beehive.
Take the beehive out of the form very gently and leave in cold place. The dough can have any taste you like, it depends only on you favourite taste. You can also use other filling.

Very chocolate cake

The recipe for “Sour cream chocolate cake” from Nigella Lawson’s “How to be a domestic goddess” was the base for this recipe. My mum modified it a little. The cake is really extremely chocolate! Quite sweet, damb and stays fresh for a long time. To decorate it I made icing butterflies, they look really great with dark chocolate.

VERY CHOCOLATE CAKE

200 g flour

200 g sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp vanilla essence

150 ml sour cream

200 g butter

2 tbsp cocoa

2 eggs

2 tbsp water

2 tbsp vegetable oil

chocolate icing:

200 g chocolate (70% cocoa)

75 g butter

1 tsp vanilla essence

30 g icing sugar

125 ml sour creme

Sift into the bowl flour, baking soda and bicarb. Mix butter with sugar until they’re combined and add the rest of the ingredients. When the dough is well mixed put into two tins (20 x 20 cm) on graseproof paper and bake two pieces. Bake it for about 30 minutes in 180 degrees. The cake is ready when it starts to come off the tin sides – you can check it with cake tester to be sure.

Chocolate icing:

Steam the chocolate. Mix butter with sifted icing sugar and cream. Pour cooled but liquid chocolate and vanilla essence into the buttery dough. Mix until it’s homogeneous and smooth. Lay it between cooled pieces of your cake, on the sides and on the top.

Keep in cold place.

Doughnuts – fluffy and delicate

“Tłusty czwartek” (thursday before Ash Wednesday – it’s something like Mardi Gras) is coming so I have some doughnuts for you. They are made from recipe which I get from my Grandmother Emily and they are really great! They grow big (light ring is the evidence for it), they are fluffy and delicate. And the most important: they’ve got the same quality and taste on the next day (home made doughnuts always lose it).

DOUGHNUTS

4 cup flour

8 egg yolks

1/2 cup sugar

100 g yeast

100 g melted butter

1 cup milk

1 tbsp vodka

marmelade or jam

600-700 g lard or oil to deep-frying

Take a cup of flour, yeast, one spoon of sugar and a half cup of milk, mix in a bowl and leave in warm place. While the leaven is growing – mix yolks with sugar (on the steam). The heat have to be very low! It should be fluffy, light and sugar have to be completely dissolved. Add the rest of the flour, the leaven, melted butter and the rest of the milk (warm) to the yolk dough. I used also grains from 1/2 of vanilla cane. Make the dough until it’s smooth, elastic and won’t stick to your hands. At the end of it add alcohol.
Then cover it and leave in warm place until it grows. When it doubles its volume make the doughnuts. Take some dough with your hand, flatten gently, make a little hole and lay the marmalade with teaspoon. Stick carefully and lay it on the cloth powdered with flour. Sticking have to be on this part which is laying on the cloth. Cover them with cloth and leave to grow. They grow big (they’ll be almost twice bigger than before). Fry it for about two minutes on each side and be careful to not burn them! While frying turn them only once! If they are well grown the light ring will appear. Powder them with icing sugar while hot or ice them when get colder.

Rosettes

Until this time I was making rosettes from this recipe. But when I found a little different recipe on the Once Upon a Plate site I decided to check it. A small change of proportions change the taste of rosettes. They are more gentle and fragile. Much better.

ROSETTES

2 eggs

1 tsp sugar

1/4  tsp salt

1 cup flour

1 cup milk (not cold)

1 vanilla essence

oil for deep-frying

Sprinkle:

1 cup icing sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

Mix all ingredients. I made it in the cocktail-jug. When the dough is smooth and there are no pieces of flour in it leave it for 20 minutes. After this time check if the dough is thick – it should be a little thicker than pancake’s dough. If it’s too thick – add 2-3 spoons of milk, if too loose  – 2-3 spoons of flour.
Heat up the oil. Dip the form for a minute in oil. Then dip the form in dough and quickly put in the oil. Dip 3/4 of form’s height. If you dip it whole the  dough will stick to the form and won’t come off it. After a few seconds of baking rosette will come off. Bake it for 20-30 seconds until they’re gold. Then dry it on the paper. Sprikle hot rosettes with icing sugar.