Gingerbread Keep first attempt

ApprenticeCrone
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Gingerbread Keep first attempt

Post by ApprenticeCrone »

Pictures were oversized, so going into spoilers.
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Recipes/notes below:
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Base:
Ginger-treacle cake
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit or so.
*GENEROUSLY butter the pan, and heavily dust it with flour. This stuff is STICKY.
*Boil equal parts nice dark stout and dark molasses (not blackstrap) -I used a bottle of oatmeal stout this time. With a pinch of baking soda. Be sure to use a large pot; it'll foam up. Stir often, you don't want the molasses to burn. Let it cool.
*While that's going, use a mortar and pestle to grind up allspice, cloves, nutmeg, cardamon, and cinnamon. Sift it together with flour, baking powder, and powdered ginger. Set aside. (I used maybe 6 cups or so of flour? About that; maybe only 5.)
*Finely chop candied ginger, set aside.
*Beat about half a dozen eggs, with a couple cups brown sugar.
*Add in about half the volume of oil (Enough oil to equal 1/2 the volume of egg/sugar mix), beat again.
*Add the cooled molasses and stout mix. Beat again.
*Add the flour mix and the chopped candied ginger. Stir together.
*Pour into pan, bake for about an hour and a half -until done, anyway


Keep proper
Adaptation of Portugese Honey Cake
*Chop dried mango and cranberries, rehydrate in bourbon with spices thrown in -boil off any excess alcohol after the fruit has reconstituted.
*Cream butter and sugar together, adding in one egg at a time, then honey and vanilla flavoring
*Chop a bunch of nuts
*Mix flour, more spices, and baking powder
*Add flour mix, nuts, and fruits to the batter, mix.
*Put the batter in a square cake tin and shape if needed. This dough is more solid -more like dense scones than bread.
*Bake at a low temp for a long time.

Towers
Eggnog Cinnamon Rolls
*Proof the yeast
*Sift your flour
*Add yeast and eggnog to your flour, beat thoroughly, and begin adding more flour until the consistency is correct.
*let rise
*Roll onto floured board.
*Brush dough with melted butter
*Sprinkle with brown sugar, and cinnamon
*Roll up, and cut into slices.
*Bake the rolls
*Let cool, and then stack them -trimming as needed- and make more until you have enough for the towers.
*It turns out they don't stack terribly well so I used skewers to hold them in place. :lol:

Rooftops
Gingerbread-house-gingerbread
(This is the stuff that's usually tougher and has a tendency to go stale and doesn't taste as good, so I'm doing as little of it as possible!)
*Whip up whipping cream and orange blossom flavoring and set aside. Remember the trick to whipping cream if you don't want butter: Chill your bowl, chill the cream, pack the bowl around the outside with frozen things to keep it cold, and THEN beat it. If you keep it cold enough you'll have longer to spot the ideal time to quit before it suddenly turns into butter on you.
*Sift your spices, baking powder, and sugar up with about half the flour.
*Beat in molasses and whipped cream
*gradually add more flour until the thickness is right
*roll out on floured board, transfer to baking sheets (line with parchment first; it'll make your life easier),
*bake at a very low temp (maybe 260) for about half an hour.
*Pull out, cut your shapes, bake again for another half an hour, maybe? Until they're done, anyway.
*Let cool completely before using!

Stairs
Marshmallow-Jello strip things
(Rewydew gave me this notion! I keep messing them up but going to try again...)
Heat up water, add jello mix, stir until dissolved, add marshmallows, stir until dissolved, pour into a pan and refrigerate until solid.
Cut into desired shapes and stack
-okay, I need to about double the portions for the pan size, but this worked very well this time.

Dragon
"Marzipan"
It's not like the stuff you'll buy in stores, because I find that too sweet to enjoy. So...
1)Blanch almonds to get the skins off.
2)Dry them, and then powder them
3)Make a sugar syrup to soft ball stage
4)Start with a bowl of the powdered almonds, and gradually add in the following, mixing as you go, until it looks, feels, and tastes right:
the soft-ball sugar syrup
corn syrup (I know, I know. But it makes it much easier to work with so it doesn't crack on you)
Almond oil
Almond flavoring (yes, more. Because almonds are just that tasty.)
a few drops of lemon or orange oil
food coloring!


Right.
So.
Royal icing was the not-terribly-effective glue. Needed some way to prop things together long enough to dry before assembly, and that didn't happen. Eh, well.
Used some regular butter-cream frosting and food coloring to do a bit of decorating, plus some gel frosting that was left over from a previous project.


Project complete as it's going to be, pictures taken, Keep partly demolished (we had 7 people over and there's still leftovers, lol), pictures will be going up shortly.
Last edited by ApprenticeCrone on December 28th, 2013, 9:24:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Arionn
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Re: Gingerbread Keep first attempt

Post by Arionn »

:droll:
me wants to eattttt it
na na na na na ~ Life is Life!
And i have no idea what i'm doing with mine x^x;
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TNHawke
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Re: Gingerbread Keep first attempt

Post by TNHawke »

Oh goodness! That looks precarious! And awesome. lol.
Hawke's IRL fiance, Lunaroki, suffered a massive stroke and died on Tuesday, March 31st, 2015.

Hawke needs to concentrate on other things, and is leaving MS permanently.

Thank you all for many fun years.
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ApprenticeCrone
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Re: Gingerbread Keep first attempt

Post by ApprenticeCrone »

Lol it was pretty precarious!
But I couldn't stand the thought of gluing the cinnamon rolls in place with icing >.< Not a fan of glue-like icing, and it's really all about the taste for me. :lol:
I just finished off the last of the rubble from the Northwest Tower for lunch, too. :well: Yum!
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