Tag Archive for: dessert

The Surprising Taste of Honey

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Walker went on a field trip recently to Bee City (www.beecity.net) as his science class is studying pollination and the different parts of a flower.  He had a ball! In addition to the bee hives,  they have a petting zoo with llamas, lemurs, monkeys, miniature horses, etc.  The best thing though was that he came home with a big plastic bear full of honey.  He promptly asked if he could try it, and so he opened up the squeeze top and squeezed a little into his mouth.  I am so sad that I didn’t have my camera with me because his face was priceless.  His eyes opened so wide and he said, “That is not at all what I thought it would taste like!!!”  I was shocked that he had never tried honey before.  How had I let this happen?  Honey is not something that I keep around- I don’t put it in tea or on toast.  I love honey, but I just never use it.   I have no idea what he thought it was going to taste like, and of course, he really couldn’t describe what it did in fact taste like.  He is an extremely adventurous eater.  He has tried blood sausage, tripe, quails eggs, escargot, any kind of liver pate, he loves caviar, so I had just assumed that honey was on the list as well- I guess not.  I, on the other hand, have been known to be a touch picky when it comes to food.  I have to say that I am much much more adventurous now, thanks to Walker, and that it really has never been a fear of what food will taste like, but it is more about the texture.  I was recently out to dinner with friends, and the chef brought out a dish of breakfast radishes for us to try.  Everyone was raving over them, and I thought about Walker and his surprise with the honey.  So I tried the radish, and it wasn’t anything like I thought it would taste.  Isn’t it amazing that food can taste so different than how you thought it was going to be.  But, back to the honey.  Now that I have a big plastic bear full of honey, I started looking for a recipe that would use the wonderful and “surprising” taste of honey to make the dish.  I found this Classic Honey Flan recipe and photo on www.honey.com which seemed like a pretty reliable source for all things honey.

Classic Honey Flan

Ingredients:

3 eggs beaten

1 1/2 cups 2% milk

1/2 cup of honey divided

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions:

Combine eggs, milk, 1/4 cup honey and vanilla. Beat until mixed but not foamy. Combine remaining 1/4 cup honey and cinnamon in small bowl; mix well. Place 4 (6-ounce) custard cups in 8-inch square baking dish. Spoon 1 tablespoon honey-cinnamon mixture into each custard cup; divide egg mixture into each custard cup. Place baking dish on middle rack of oven; pour boiling water into baking dish around custard cups to 1-inch depth. Bake at 325°F 30 to 45 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Serve warm or cold.

Easter Angel Cake

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It was over 90 degrees in Charleston yesterday.  It is 50 degrees today.  Other than the obvious answer of a cold front, how does that happen?  I feel like it is colder Easter weekend than it was for Christmas.  The one good thing about the cold. I was supposed to go to the Masters today but had to give up my ticket because my dad had surgery today (he’s ok), and I didn’t want to be out of touch for the entire day.  The good thing about the cold is that now I don’t really mind that I missed the Masters.  I really don’t care that much for golf, and I would have been miserable walking around for hours in this weather.  So, instead, I have caught up on some TV, and I made an Easter Angel Cake.  I was looking at Pinterest.com yesterday and saw so many great ideas for Easter.  People are so freaking creative it boggles my mind.  I am not one of those people, but this sounded so easy and cute that I thought I would give it a try.  All you need is a box of Angel Food cake mix, whip cream (you can either make it or just use cool whip which is what I did because I was running a little short on time), green sprinkles, and some sort of fun Easter candy- I used pastel colored Reeces Pieces- yum.  There was the suggestion to use shaved coconut but I am not a huge coconut fan, so I decided to skip that, but I do think I would look very pretty and fun.  So, basically, follow the directions on the Angel Food box to make the cake.  Let the cake cool and the cover with the whip cream.  Then decorate with sprinkles and candy to make it look like a little egg hunt.  I was hoping to do this yesterday with Walker because this is such a fun and easy thing to do with kids, but after homework and soccer practice, we ran out of time.  He headed off to NYC today to spend Easter with his dad, so I had to decorate the cake alone, but I think Walker would be pleased with my efforts.

Alice Boffin Toft’s Bakery

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This is Alice Boffin Toft’s Bakery.  I am not sure where or when we got this, but as a child, this was a favorite.  It was my sister’s, and while she allowed me to play with it, I was extremely jealous, so for a birthday, I got a vegetable cart which you will see in other pictures.  Obviously, not nearly as cool, but when combined, the two were better than any mini grocery store.  If you look closely, in the front is a big yellow cake with a yellow rose.  I thought that was the most beautiful cake in the world and dreamed one day of being able to get a cake like that.  I actually hadn’t thought about that cake for some time, but my wonderful, awesome, beautiful nieces- Phoebe  age almost 6 and Anna age 2 1/2- came for a visit last week, and my mother brought out the Alice Boffin Toft bakery and the vegetable stand.  They loved it!  I will readily admit to taking the box and playing with the bakery while Anna was taking a nap and Phoebe and Walker were off doing something else.  Well, of couse Anna woke up from her nap and busted me in the living room playing with the bakery (you can see the vegetable cart in this picture).  Then Walker and Phoebe found us, and then my play time was over.  I am so glad that this little bakery and all its wonderful treats is still something that little girls and even little boys when dragged along by their sweet cousins want to play with.  In keeping with loving things from the past, here is my great grandmother’s chocolate cake recipe which is super delicious.  However, one day, I hope to be a baker fine enough to make a beautiful yellow cake with a beautiful yellow rose, but until then, I can always pull out Alice Boffin for fun!

Sarah Walker’s Chocolate Cake:

Cream:

1 ¼ sticks butter

2 cups brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

Then add, one at a time

2 large eggs

Mix:

1 ½ cups unbleached flour

1 tsp. salt

Mix:

1 tsp. baking soda in ½ c. boiling water

1/3 cup buttermilk

Melt:

2 squares unsweetened chocolate, melted

Preheat oven to 350.  Place chocolate in small pan to melt in oven or in microwave.  Beat butter and sugar, add eggs.  Sift dry ingredients and add alternately with buttermilk and soda mixture.  Bake in 2  8” pans at 350 for 30 minutes.

 

All done skiing- its time for Spring!

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We got back from Vail last night to 80 degree weather- a very welcome change despite the fact that I was still wearing my wool socks and my feet almost melted off walking to the car.  Vail was amazing!  I have not been to Colorado in over 20 years and never in the winter, and it is breathtakingly beautiful.  It certainly helped that the weather was excellent- it was in the 50s by mid morning of the first three days we skied which made the snow like mashed potatoes, and it was spring skiing at its finest.  The last day it was about 20 degrees, and I had not packed for 20 degrees.  Lets just say that Corby spent the majority of the last day skiing by himself while I walked around Vail village looking for a present for Walker and then hunkered down the awesome coffee shop the Yeti’s Grind (www.yetisgrind.com) which has the best cupcakes.  On St. Patrick’s day, we went in there before we hit the slopes and got an Irish Carbomb cupcake- holy amazing Batman, that cupcake set me right for the rest of the day.  One of other fun places we checked out was the Red Lion (www.theredlion.com).   This is probably the most famous apres ski place in Vail, and it is not to be missed.  Phil Long puts on a fantastic show while you are indulging in their GI-NORMOUS plate of nachos and sipping on your favorite cocktail.  It might be worth getting of the mountain early just to grab a seat.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, we spend one day skiing at Beaver Creek and had lunch at the Ritz Carlton.  This place is kind of silly it is so nice.  We had lunch on big couches (the couch in the picture is the one we sat on) in front of a huge window watching skiers come down the hill, and we sat next to Joe Kern from CNBC (I had no idea who he was, but Corby is a big CNBC watcher).  Corby and I spilt a turkey club and a bowl of tomato parmesan soup. Honestly, I am not sure it it was the setting or the relief of taking my ski boots off, but that was the best damn soup ever!

Now we are back in Charleston- it is full on Spring with the azaleas blooming everywhere and tank tops and flip flops have taken back over, and to put the ski season and winter behind me, I found this very spring time recipe on www.GoodHousekeeping.com for a Lemon Ricotta Cheese cake.  Enjoy!!

Lemon Ricotta Cheese cake

Ingredients:

1 cup graham cracker crumbs
4 tablespoons butter or margarine,  softened
3 to 4 lemons
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 packages   (8-ounce)  reduced-fat cream  cheese softened
1 container   (15-ounce)  part-skim  ricotta cheese
4 large eggs
2 cups half-and-half or light  cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Wrap the outside of a 9-inch springform pan with heavy-duty foil to prevent batter from leaking out during baking.

In a springform pan, with fork, mix graham cracker crumbs and butter until crumbs are moistened. With hand, press mixture firmly onto bottom of pan.  Bake crust 10 minutes. Cool on wire rack, about 15 minutes.

Reset oven to 325 degrees F. Meanwhile, from 2 lemons, grate 2  teaspoons peel and squeeze 1/3 cup juice. In small bowl, stir together sugar and  cornstarch until blended. In large bowl, with mixer on medium speed, beat cream  cheese and ricotta until smooth, about 5 minutes. Slowly beat in sugar mixture.  Reduce speed to low; beat in eggs, half-and-half, vanilla, and lemon peel and  juice just until blended, scraping bowl often with rubber spatula.

Pour batter onto crust. Bake cheesecake 1 hour. Turn off oven; let  cheesecake remain in oven 1 hour.

Remove cheesecake from oven. To help prevent cracking during cooling,  run a thin knife between edge of the cheesecake and pan as soon as the cheesecake comes  out of the oven. Cool cake in pan on wire rack 2 hours. Cover and refrigerate cheesecake at least 6 hours or overnight, until well chilled.

To serve, remove foil and side of pan and place cake on plate. From remaining lemons, with a sharp knife, cut 8 very thin center slices; use to garnish the top of the cheesecake.

 

Disney Surprise and Profiteroles

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We surprised Walker with a trip to Disney World this past week.  Corby and I have been planning this since before Christmas, and I was looking forward to his reaction more than to the trip.  We had it all planned out- we would pick him up from school and tell him we were taking him down to a plantation (he is doing a year-long project on plantations), and then we would surprise him when we got somewhere in Georgia.  Of course, last Tuesday night, Walker woke up with 104 fever and did not go to school on Wednesday but to the doctor, who pronounced that Walker had strep throat.  Fortunately, his fever was gone and we got him on antibiotics immediately, so we were still able to leave on Wednesday afternoon.  We still told him that we were going to a plantation, and finally, somewhere south of Savannah, Walker asked when we were going to get there- here is the video of his reaction- so fun- click here to watch disney video!!  Thursday morning we went to the Animal Kingdom, where Corby and Walker rode the Yeti Mt. Everest ride 3 or 4 times.  I sat and waited as I don’t do roller coasters.  We went back to the hotel for some lunch and pool time and then headed over to Epcot for some more roller coasters for Walker and Corby and more waiting for me.  Then we went to Les Chefs (http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/les-chefs-de-france/) for dinner in France at Epcot.  I don’t actually remember what I had for dinner because I was so excited to order Profiteroles for dessert.  I had read Les Chefs was known for their Profiteroles, and I was beyond happy when they arrived, as they were so delicious.  I have found a recipe on www.joyofbaking.com that looks very good, and when I get more than 5 minutes of free time, I can’t wait to try to make them!  The rest of the trip was fabulous- lots more roller coasters and waiting.  Walker’s reaction and the profiteroles were definitely my favorite parts!

Choux Pastry

Ingredients:

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon granulated white sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup water
2 large eggs lightly beaten

Egg Wash Glaze:
1 large egg
1/8 teaspoon salt

Directions

for Choux Pastry:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and place rack in the center of the oven.  Lina a baking sheet with parchment paper.  In a bowl, sift together flour, sugar, and salt.  Set aside.  Place the butter and water in a heavy saucepan over medium heat and bring to a boil.  Remove from heat and with a wooden spoon or spatula, quickly add the flour mixture.  Return to heat and stir constantly until the dough comes away from the sides of the pan and forms a thick smooth ball (about a minute of two).  Transfer the dough to your electric mixer or hand mixer and beat on a low speed a minute or two to release the steam from the dough.  Once the dough is lukewarm, start adding the lightly beaten eggs and continue to mix until you have a smooth sticky paste.  Spoon or pipe 12 mounds of dough onto the baking sheet, spacing them a couple of inches apart.  Beat together the egg and salt for the glaze.  With a pastry brush, gently brush the tops of the dough.  Bake for 15 minutes and then reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees.  Bake for another 30-40 minutes or until the shells are a nice amber color and when split, are dry inside.  Turn the oven off and with the door slightly ajar let the shells dry out for a further 10-15 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool on a wore rack.

Chocolate Ganache Ingredients:

4 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate cut into small pieces
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Chocolate Ganache Directions:
Place the chopped chocolate in a medium sized stainless steel bowl. Set aside. Heat the cream and butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring just to a boil. Immediately pour the boiling cream over the chocolate and allow to stand for 5 minutes. Stir with a whisk until smooth.  Use
immediately. (The ganache can be made ahead and stored in the refrigerator for up to a week. Reheat in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water.)

Filling:
Vanilla ice cream
To assemble- split the pastry shells in half, fill the bottom halves of the shells with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and replace the top.  Drizzle each profiterole liberally with warm chocolate ganache.  Serve immediately.

Skiing, Swimming, Sledding, and a Pinata

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We took 14 people up to North Carolina with us this past weekend, so including us, there were 12 adults and 5 children (and 2 dogs). It was a packed house, but we all had so much fun!  Corby, Walker and I drove up on Thursday night which also happened to be Corby’s birthday- we stopped in Blowing Rock at Bistro Roca (www.bistroroca.com) for dinner which was fabulous.  I had a pulled pork crepe that was out of this world.  Walker had mussels that he said were delicious, and Corby had meatloaf that was really good.  The only drawback was that we saved one slice of meatloaf to put in our eggs on Friday morning, and when we stopped to get gas after dinner, Nemo- my pesky 10-year-old Springer Spaniel- ate the meatloaf- it was disappointing.  Oh well.  Friday, we skied all day at Sugar Mountain which was so much fun- bluebird day and 50 degrees- what more could you ask for! The rest of the gang arrived on Friday night.  Saturday, we woke up to another beautiful warm day and an amazing egg, cheese, and vegetable casserole made by Marguerite.  So, the way we set up the weekend was every family was in charge of one meal- we didn’t count lunch, and I was in charge of appetizers and desserts.  After our marvelous and healthy breakfast (the casserole consisted of the only vegetables we had all weekend) we set off on a hike to Lost Cove, while the kids went snow tubing.  It is a beautiful hike down to these amazing swimming holes generally used in the summer unless you are crazy like the men on our hike who decided to swim- in February- in 45 degree water- what?  Anyway, appetizers after we got home included “cheesy goodness” which is Edam cheese wrapped in Pillsbury Crescent Rolls baked at 350 for about 35-40 minutes, and a cheese plate- yay cheese.  Dinner was the Haynie’s famous hot dog bar- every topping you could ever want on a hot dog, and then for dessert, I made the Cheesecake Strawberries which were amazingly good and easy and Blondie Bars- also easy and delicious!  In one batch I cut up Twix Bars- that was something special.  Sunday morning was a breakfast for the history books.  Kendall and Robert made Bailey’s french toast with some sort of homemade heaven (aka syrup), venison sausage, and they added a bowl of fruit for good measure.  While we were eating, it started snowing which of course made the kids go crazy!  We ended up getting about 5 inches of snow throughout Sunday- the sledding, the games, the snowmen, and the snowball fights exhausted everyone!  To revive the group, I made Bacon appetizers which I found on the Pioneer Woman website (www.thepioneerwoman.com).  It was the most simple and fantastic thing ever!  Take a package of bacon- cut it in half.  Lay out the half strips of bacon on a baking sheet.  Place a club cracker in the center of the strip of bacon, place a spoonful of Parmesan cheese on top to the club cracker and wrap the bacon snugly around the cracker and cheese.  Bake at 250 for 2 hours. Really really good, and they did not last long!  After another amazing dinner cooked by Robert and Olivia- beef stew with baked potatoes, we brought out the pinata for the kids which was so fun!  The whole weekend was amazing, and not surprisingly, Walker slept for 3 and a half hours on the car ride home!  Such good food and good friends- can’t wait to do it again!

Pinterest and Cheesecake Strawberries

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I admit that I am pretty slow to the game when it comes to new social media technology.  I am terrified of this new facebook layout and won’t even look at friends pages that have the new layout because I don’t understand it.  I don’t twitter or tweet or whatever you call it even though I probably should.  And until literally five minutes ago, I had heard of pinterest, but hadn’t ever looked at it.  Well I just did, and this is one of the first things I saw!   What is this amazing little treat???  It was put up by The Sweets Life (www.thesweetslife.com).  It sounds easy, delicious, and looks fancy- YAY!!  These are the directions I copied from the Sweets Life website- which I clearly need to read a lot more of!

Cheesecake Strawberries

Ingredients:
-1 lb large strawberries
-8 oz. cream cheese, softened (can use 1/3 less fat)
-3-4 tbsp powdered sugar (4 tbsp for a sweeter filling)
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-Graham cracker crumbs

Directions:

1. Rinse strawberries and cut around the top
of the strawberry. Remove the top and clean out with a paring knife, if
necessary (some may already be hollow inside). Prep all strawberries and set
aside.
2. In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla
until creamy. Add cream cheese mix to a piping bag or ziploc with the corner
snipped off. Fill strawberries with cheesecake mixture. Once strawberries are
filled, dip the top in graham cracker crumbs. If not serving immediately,
refrigerate until serving.

So, while I am still a complete novice at pinterest (I am actually waiting for an invitation to join), I am intrigued by what might be on this site or did I just find the best thing right off the bat?  Can’t wait to make these!

The Secret to a Red Velvet Cake??

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I made Red Velvet Whoopie Pies last night to take as dessert to a dinner party.  The recipe was a very simple recipe for the red velvet part- a box of cake mix, eggs, water and oil.  I made two different fillers: a marshmallow and a cream cheese icing.  Everything went very well, and they looked beautiful- I had rolled them in mini chocolate chips and red hots- it was just a fun dessert to make.  Then Corby came home.  And he tried one. And it was bad.  Corby loves red velvet cake, and as this was my first attempt to make this, I was pretty excited for him to try it and love it and think that I was the best baker in the world.  Needless to say, very disappointed.  What went wrong??  I, of course, tried one as well, and Corby was not lying- they were bad despite how pretty they looked.  Fortunately, I had enough time to make a Cheerwine Cake, which is always good.  So, my goal this weekend is to find and make a good red velvet cake.  I am not going to use a box mix because that clearly didn’t work.  The standard recipe that I am finding online seems to be:

Red Velvet Cake

  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
  • 2 ounces red food coloring
  • 2 1/2 cups cake flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 tablespoon vinegar

There is some variations in the amount of baking soda and vinegar and cocoa powder, but I am going to be a master of this by Sunday so stay tuned!!

Peanut Butter Pie Fail

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I love The Local Palate (www.localpalatemag.com), the new cooking/food magazine in Charleston.  Yesterday, they put up a link to all of their recipes http://www.localpalatemag.com/recipes.html, and I tried the Peanut Butter Pie recipe.  You know those days in the kitchen where everything goes wrong- you drop eggs on the floor, you burn butter, your flour explodes everywhere into a disastrous mess- that was pretty much my experience with trying to make a Peanut Butter Pie.  You know when you have those days, and despite all the mess and frustration, your dish turns out marvelously- well, that didn’t happen.  Ok- here is the recipe from the Local Palate-

Peanut Butter Pie

Ingredients:

2 cups peanut butter, smooth or chunky
1 pound cream cheese
¼ cup powdered sugar
1 pint heavy cream
1 vanilla bean, split and seeded
3 large egg yolks
1 Oreo cookie prepared pie shell
4 tablespoons peanuts, toasted
4 ounces shaved bittersweet chocolate

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, whip together peanut butter, cream cheese, and powdered sugar.

Pour cream into a second mixing bowl or stand mixer. Whip cream with vanilla bean seeds to stiff peaks.

Fill bottom of double boiler with water and place on medium-high heat on the stove. Place egg yolks in top of double boiler and lightly temper egg yolks until slightly thickened, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and let come to room temperature.

Fold eggs into peanut butter mixture.

Fold in whipped cream with peanut butter mixture. Combine thoroughly.

Pour mixture into prepared Oreo pie shell. Top with peanuts and shaved chocolate. Place in freezer for 2 hours. Use a warm knife to serve.

Now- here is what went wrong.  First of all- I could not find an Oreo pie shell as the store, so no big deal, I got a chocolate pie shell. Next, I decided to use my stand mixer to mix the heavy cream and my hand mixer to mix the peanut butter, cream cheese and powdered sugar together.  Bad idea.  Perhaps I might have used too small of a bowl, but mixing cream cheese, peanut butter and powdered sugar is not so easy- but mess aside- got it done.  Now to the heavy cream and the seeds of a vanilla bean.  I got some of the seeds out and the rest all over me, so I added some vanilla extract, but despite the work to get the seeds- my heavy cream did not whip… at all.  It just stayed very milky and spraying everywhere.   A phone call to my mother informed me that even though the recipe said heavy cream, I should have bought heavy whipping cream or just whipping cream and fortunately she had some at her house.  In the mean time, I did not have a double boiler for the egg yolks- it took five attempts to get the three yolks needed.  Not only that, but in my homemade double boiler of two pots on top of each other, are you supposed to have the bottom pot boiling before you put on the eggs- I don’t know, but I did not have the water boiling before I added the eggs, so I am not sure if the eggs turned out correctly.  I took the eggs off of the stove to let them get to room temperature and rode my bike over to my mother’s to get her whipping cream.  She only had 1/2 a pint, but it whipped beautifully, so I then added half of mine that I had been mixing for 15 minutes to no effect.  Well, of course that diluted the whole mixture but I added it and the eggs to the peanut butter mix anyway.  This part all went ok- and I put it in the pie shell and froze it and it looked very pretty.  It really didn’t taste very good, and it wasn’t that it was horrible by any means, but just not great.  I don’t know if it was the eggs or the bad heavy cream or what, but if I was to attempt this again, I would get some good whipping cream, and I would cut the amount of cream cheese in half as it was a very strong flavor and kind of hid the peanut butter flavor, and I would double the amount of powdered sugar to 1/2 a cup.  I think you could do this without messing up the recipe too much as I had a ton of the pie filling left over.  I will say the chocolate pie crust was very tasty, and if you can’t find oreo- this works just as well!  Here’s to feeling like a complete beginner in the kitchen again!!

Gingerbread House Party

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We went to my sister’s gingerbread house party in New York last weekend, and Walker was so disappointed that he couldn’t take his gingerbread house on the plane home, we decided to have a gingerbread house party as well.  Thanks to my mother’s genius when she was making houses for my sister’s party, she made five extra, because who doesn’t need extra gingerbread houses lying around?  There were so many great things about this party.  The first was that the only thing I had to do was buy the candy.  I can do that.  I can do that well.  The only problem there is making sure all of the candy actually gets home.  Here is the candy set up.

The second great thing about this party was the three families we had come over to help us decorate the houses.  Two of the families are very old friends of mine who I have know since I was born practically, and we all three went from 1st through 12th grade together, and that includes boarding school in Connecticut.  We had grown up decorating gingerbread houses together as children, and it was so much fun to watch our own children start this tradition for themselves.

The third thing I loved about this party was where my sweet old dog, Nemo, positioned himself.  Now, since I didn’t actually have to do anything for this party other than buy the candy, and since I am currently at my real job without my mother’s recipe book in front of me, I can’t post at this time the recipe for gingerbread houses, but I will do an update this afternoon when I get home.

I might be biased, but I think these four gingerbread houses are the best gingerbread houses ever to be built.  It is such a fun Christmas activity to do with children, and so much fun to eat after!

Update: Of course my wonderful mother sent me the recipe as soon as she read this!!

Gingerbread House/Men

 Cream:
¼ cup butter
½ cup sugar
½ cup dark molasses

 Sift:
3 ½ cups unbleached flour
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. cloves
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. ginger
2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. baking soda

Add dry ingredients to the butter- sugar mixture alternately withabout ¼ – ½ cup water, or enough to be able to roll out the dough. Cut into shapes for a house or into Gingerbread men and bake on doubled, or even tripled layers of waxed paper. Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes.

Icing Cement

Mix 3 egg whites at room temperature until they are very peaked and dry. Slowly add one box of powdered sugar.