Gingerbread Recipe

Gingerbread Recipe 

Right so as promised in my previous post here is my gingerbread recipe that I use for all of my house construction and cookies.  Christmas time or not as it happens. 


So here is my recipe that I created by combining a few from the BBC and Delia Smith. I sometimes use molasses instead of Golden Syrup for certain batches if I know its for people who prefer it a little darker with a richer taste. Personally though, I am a golden syrup all the way, sort of girl.


Ingredients:

• 350g plain flour (plus lots more for kneading and covering surfaces)
• 5 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
• 175g light brown soft sugar
• 100g butter
• 4 tablespoons golden syrup
• 1 medium egg
• 1 cup of water, perhaps more if it is misbehaving. 

So the first thing most recipes tell you to do is pre-heat your oven, but I actually would advice against this if you are doing a house or anything complicated, you don't want to rush this. If you are making cookies then go ahead and set your oven to 180 C, if you are going to do it later I advice doing it after you have made your dough and before you start to play with it. 

Right add in all of your dry ingredients, starting with the big one, the flour. 

 Ignore the fact that the scales say 700, I made a double batch for those two big houses. 

And your bicarbonate of soda 

Next off add in your spices. I'm using ginger and Cinnamon. 

Nice big ol' spoon of the stuff! 

Next part add in your sugar, I use light brown because I think it tastes that bit better (and more Christmas-y) but if you don't have it you can use dark or plain sugar. It wont self destruct, not the end of the world :)

Mix it all together so you end up with a crumbly dry mix, like the picture above. Then its time to measure out your butter. Butter improves almost everything with the exception of your heart and cholesterol. 

Butter <3 

Once again remember this is me making a double batch so you may not want quite as much butter in the picture :)

I know lots of recipes advice against this but in this case I cheat and melt my butter when I add it in, it helps with the kneading and heck the smell is so good when you add it in


After your butter in goes your egg. Funny thing, the 6 eggs in the box  I used that week were all double yolks. They were just a normal pack of eggs but every one I used turned out like this. Maybe I should have tried my luck at the lottery that week.......

Then add in about a cup of water, keep some on hand when kneading if it needs more.
Now for all the syrupy goodness. Golden syrup going in time. There is always the trick of heating your spoon when you measure it out as it makes it less viscous and more runny which helps a bit. If you are going to do that then keep a mug of boiled water next to you to leave the spoon in to warm it, thats the easiest way I have found. Or you could be bad and just stick the syrupy spoon in your mouth. Just saying he he. 

Two- two yolk eggs there. You only need one for a single batch. 


Then the kneading! After a wash get your hands in there and smush everything together, and mix it until you get a nice ball of mix that can hold its own shape. 

Like this. 

After that it is all up to you. If you are going to make a house make sure you use a template even it is just one you drew earlier, I have tried to draw them by eye before, bad idea with a capital B. 

Once they are in the oven check after 10 minutes if you are baking large panels  maybe 5 to 8 minutes if you are baking something smaller. 

Good luck and happy baking 

and as always thanks for reading x

Butter Day!

Butter Day!

So one of the fun things about being home is that, back in Portsmouth I rarely drink. Now stop laughing, it is shockingly true even though I am nuts about cocktails. It’s a combination of the price and the ever increasing size of my butt.  So when I come home I somehow manage to forget my butt is threatening to develop its own orbit and I start playing with my parent’s extensive selection of alcoholic beverages.  My dad, Graham is fantastic  we did a booze run together to this massive place in Ras Al Khaimah, It is not so much a lack of alcohol shops in Dubai, there are a few, but this place is something else! So when we did this shop Graham casually goes "anything you want while we are here?" and from there the madness begins. At the beginning of the month we went and a few extra bottles may have migrated into the shopping cart because of me. The most interesting I must say from playing with it this month, has been the butterscotch liqueur.  We grabbed a bottle because I was curious about it, thinking back to Harry Potter drinking butter beer and knowing I had a recipe for that somewhere, or knowing if all else failed that the YouTube channel “You Deserve A Drink,” would have me covered. If you have never seen it and your tolerance for terrible puns is high, go check it out. I love watching it however the puns and gags are horrendous, do not watch in the same room as say your mother, or anyone you are trying to impress.

So back to the Butterscotch liqueur, I was disappointed to see that all of the Butterbeer recipes were mostly along the lines of, “get a beer, get a shot of butterscotch liqueur, and add them together.” Alternatively there were quite a few which were mega complicated involving tablespoons of butter, and more than one kind of sugar, cream was almost always used and it involved making syrups, making different parts, making a topping etc. Basically very fatty and mega time consuming and complicated. Also always with no actual alcohol which I was rather hoping for in butterBEER. So I had a play around today with what was in the house! 

Here is what I came up with!




Number 1

Coke and Butterscotch 
Caramel Coke

I will say i'm not always a fan of adding things to coke. I never got the big trend of Jack Daniels and coke or Amaretto and coke. I must say this though, not as bad as I thought it would be reading the 'sort-of-recipe,' online. If  you add too much I can imagine it being sickly and ending up being a drink that sits at the edge of your desk and you occasionally give it a horrible glance. 

Number 2

(Mega)Basic Butterbeer

Next up, general beer and butter. Saw this in a few places, one involving adding a high ethanol alcohol to make it a flaming shot. The idea behind that one was that you add the shot of high ethanol alcohol and butterscotch to a beer, on fire, which causes it to fizz over meaning you have to either have a wet, sticky floor or you chug. I'm sorry to report that I didn't much fancy either of those options so the boring option it is! 

The weapon of choice here was Heineken for one simple reason. The house is full of the stuff. Whenever Graham throws a shindig he stocks up and I have no idea when he thinks 'I need beer for people,' he picks Heineken. There are various other nicer choices. But for this it will suffice. The fact that these were small glasses helped. 

Now this drink I found the hardest to estimate how much butterscotch to add. There seemed to be a fine line between 'Oh butter,' and 'Oh my lord, drowning in buttery goodness.'  Either way not my sort of drink, however I think if you are a big beer drinker and maybe have a killer sweet tooth this could be your cup of tea, or butterbeer. 

Number 3

Butter-float.

This one did sound appealing. This reminds me of having butterscotch sauce on ice cream after school sometimes. Only sometimes though because I was always far more eager for chocolate sauce, but butterscotch was always a close second. 

This recipe basically was butterscotch liqueur like some fantastic alcoholic sauce, milk and vanilla ice cream. Add in whatever proportions you fancy and mix together. Sweet and creamy this was a mega easy, alcoholic ice cream milkshake. I actually really liked this one, especially after the other two. I went easy on the butter because too much and this would be too sweet, about half a shot to a regular glass full of ice cream, milk mix seemed right. 

Number 4

A banana rip-off of number 3.

While browsing recipes involving butterscotch I did keep finding the same few ingredients paired together, One was Baileys which I am currently out of, the other was Banana liqueur  So hoping to reduce ingredients banana was then added to the mixture above after I was done with it. Must say just as nice! Who would have thought butter and banana worked so well together. Not me for one. 

Number 5. 

The last idea was to add Butterscotch to a White Russian, a drink I am rather partial too. 
Basic White Russian is Kahalua  Vodka and milk so in this case add as much Butterscotch as Kahalua which is normally one or two shots. For this I only used one. 

To Milk adding the  vodka and Butterscotch. Then comes the Kahalua. 

This was very nice, perhaps even on par with a normal white Russian  I would definitely make this again! Buttery Russians, who knew? 


So overall this was my general ranking of these drinks. 

The best was the Butter Russian, the second was the butter, banana ice cream. Third was the plain Butter ice cream, fourth was the caramel cola and last was the basic butter beer. 

Hope this gives some one out there an idea

Posting again soon x

Pink Kiss Cocktail

Pink Kiss Cocktail

Most people who know me, know that I am rather a fan of alcohol, specifically cocktails.  If its sweet or fruity i'm in.  One of the best parts about coming home is the booze cabinet. My parents are also fans of alcohol in general and when holidays roll around again I get my little mitts into the cabinet and try all kinds of combinations. Sometimes from recipes or sometimes, such as in this case, I just go with it and pour bits and bobs together and hope for the best. This was one of the best things to come out of pouring pretty coloured things together in my opinion. You may disagree but each to their own :)

Right to make the Pink Kiss cocktail you will need:

- half a shot of Blue Ccuracao
- Half a shot of Archers Peach Schnapps
- Half a shot of Banana liqueur  Crème De Banana  
- Half a shot of Watermelon Liqueur 
- Pineapple 
-  Half a cup of Orange juice
 - Ice 

Start of by filling about half the glass with ice. Grab a piece of Pineapple, mine was a big piece so only one was used. Cut a slab as a garnish and pop it on the side of the glass. 

After that cube some more pineapple, it does not need to be exact, and place it on top of the ice. They majority of it should stay above the ice, and therefore cold, at the end.

Next add in your Blue Curacao, about half a shots measure,

Next the Crème de Banana, or banana liqueur. Half a shot, and in it goes! 

Pour that in and then move onto the Archers, I may have used just under half because I didn't want this to be too sweet.

And of course last but not least my favourite of the group the watermelon liqueur,  I  do realise this is not the most complicated drink to make. 

You may be able to tell I particularly like this one, rather a full 'half' shot there. 

After adding all of these you should end up with a pool of different alcohols in the bottom of the glass making a slightly off pinkish colour, just about bordering on brown. 

Here is where the Oj comes in, this glass took about half a cup but if your using a different size then you may need to see. Add in the OJ and then you should find if you do nothing the layers will  just sit on top of each other.

Lastly just add a straw and give it a mix, or if your me, blow through the straw and let the bubbles mix it all up. Hope you like it as much as I did :)