Gingerbread isn't just for Christmas

Every Christmas for at least the last 5 years I've declared "this is the year I'll finally make a gingerbread house" and it never happens. Last year was no exception.

However I was determined not to let the occasion slip past yet another year, especially since I had bought all the ingredients and decorations. Instead I rescheduled the bake for Easter. Why should Christmas have all the fun? Stick some mini eggs on it and you've got yourself an Easter gingerbread house.

The recipe and house template are from BBC Good Food. It's easily the largest quantity of dough I have ever handled. It barely fitted in my massive and deep ceramic kitchenaid mixing bowl; no other bowl I owned could contain the dough beast. Goodness knows what you do if you don't own a big stand mixer.

The dough is divided into quarters once you've completed the Olympic task of bringing it all together. Out of curiosity I weighed each quarter and they were roughly 500g each, so that's 2kg of gingerbread dough in total!

I made a few deviations from the recipe including subbing out some of the mixed spice in favour of cinnamon, using a mixture of brown sugars (I fancied adding some dark sugar), resting the dough in the fridge for half an hour before rolling out my shapes, rolling out the dough between sheets of grease proof paper and using a boiled sugar/caramel to stick the house together as it sets quicker than royal icing.

I also didn't fancy cutting out gingerbread tiles for the roof as I wanted to use white chocolate buttons (which, coincidentally and impressively, I had exactly the right number of for sticking to the roof.) This left me with a lot of left over dough which I turned into biscuits using my Spring themed cutters: flowers, hearts, bunnies and chicks. The bunnies are my favourite, they looked adorable.

The finished house is perhaps a bit rough and ready and my piping could certainly be a lot neater but I'm really pleased with my first attempt. I think piping/decorating the sections before assembly would result in neater piping, so that's something to bear in mind if/when I make another one. I would also reduce the quantities for just making a house which would make the dough a more manageable size. As you can below, my left overs created a big tin full of biscuits.

However I doubt I'll ever recreate this at Christmas time as it was so labour and time intensive. It was good fun but basically took up a whole weekend: one afternoon baking, one afternoon decorating. In a funny way I think it was actually a better idea to make in Spring, more chilled as I had less other obligations. Maybe I'll do a gingerbread summer house next!

Almost forgot to mention that the gingerbread tasted lovely - a classic soft gingerbread, rather than a crisp biscuit. Thank goodness it tasted good after all that effort!

Courgette and walnut cake

One would be forgiven for thinking I no longer baked judging by the rolling tumble weed on this blog, but look! Here's a cake I baked recently and remembered to photograph. 

Also, check out my beautiful ceramic kitchenaid mixer bowl which Santa gave me for Christmas (after some not so subtle hinting.) I love that it has a pouring spout and matches my 1950s pastel kitchen.

The cake is an adaption of the courgette and walnut layer cake from the Hummingbird Bakery's Cake Days book, scaled down to a more manageable 2 layer cake. Three layer cakes look spectacular but I always feel they're more of an "occasion" cake to feed lots of people so I often admire but skim past those recipes. I'm far more likely to bake a standard 2 layer cake.

Over the past year I've been really into baking with greens. A strange statement admittedly but bear with me. I've had brilliant success baking with avocados in chocolate based recipes such as brownies and cookies. I've also made a lovely courgette and chocolate loaf and this courgette, coconut and lime cake which I've already documented here from a couple of years ago. I doubt I'm going to start putting broccoli or kale in cakes though, that may be a step too far.

Basically if you love carrot cake then you will also enjoy this courgette and walnut cake. It's the same textures and flavours but with the carrot swapped for courgette.

The big difference with this cake is the icing which is a cinnamon flavoured butter icing with Greek yoghurt as opposed to a cream cheese icing. I've never used yoghurt in icing before so was intrigued to try it out. It adds a slight tang, similar to using cream cheese and the finished icing had a beautiful, mousse-like texture. However, I don't think it has replaced my love for cream cheese icing. I think most of my cake eaters also preferred a cream cheese icing to this one but it was fun to try something different.

Courgette and walnut cake

Recipe adapted from Hummingbird Bakery's Cake Days book 

Sponge:

2 large eggs

200ml sunflower oil

200g soft light brown sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

200g plain flour 

Heaped 1/2 tsp baking powder (to work out roughly as 2/3 tsp for recipe ratio)

Heaped 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (same as above.)

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

Pinch of ground mixed spice 

200g grated courgette (with excess moisture squeezed out.)

66g walnuts, chopped into small chunks

Icing: (I can't remember exactly, but this is roughly what I did)

175g butter

1 tsp ground cinnamon

250g -300g icing sugar

50g - 75g plain Greek yoghurt

Preheat the oven to 170C/ 150C fan/ 325F/ gas Mark 3. Grease and line 2 round 20cm/ 8 inch sandwich tins with baking parchment.

Whisk together the eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl for a couple of minutes until well combined.

In a separate bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and ground spices. Add this dry mixture to the wet egg mixture in two batches, mixing well after each addition. Mix until fully combined.

Stir in the grated courgettes and chopped walnuts then divide the cake batter into the two prepared cake tins.

Bake for 35 - 40 minutes in the centre of the oven until risen, golden on top and springy to touch. Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes before turning out to finish cooling on cooling racks.

To make the icing mix the butter, icing sugar and cinnamon together. Once fully combined add the yoghurt and keep mixing for around 5 minutes until the icing is light and fluffy.

Fill and top the cooled cakes with the icing and decorate with more walnut pieces.