Gingerbread House, Gingerbread Man & Black Russian Brownies

Ooo yeah!  The time has come for me to try my hands at making the Gingerbread House!  I thought it was a simple task.  All I need to do is just make the dough house structure, bake it, construct it, decorate it, and voila!  Well, I'm in for a big surprise.

At least, the steps are all so simple until the assembling part!  It took me 3 hours or more to finally complete the assembling and decoration.  It took a lot of planning.  Good thing I baked the house structure a day ahead together with the gingerbread man.

                   

 

                 

 

My daughters helped out with the decoration on the gingerbread cookies.  They are very good at it and enjoyed doing it very much!  The 'dress-up' are all their creations.  Nice huh!

                 

 

                 

 

Ooo..my walls are up..but wait.  The 'fun' part was the roof and the chimney!  That's where the disappointment and despair begins and I'm not one to give up that easily. Muaahhahhah!

Okay, the roof and chimney looks good... but don't be fooled.  The 'glue' doesn't hold and the roof gave way.  Oh! I'm in desperation.  I tried various ways to keep them together.  Add more frosting and pray hard it will stick but failed!  Tried using the satay stick by supporting the roof from bottom and planted it to the 'ground' but the roof was too heavy.  So, that idea didn't work either.  Now what?

Thought of making a hole through the top of the roof and tie through with a string but dough is too hard to poke through.  So, bad idea.  I'm not gonna put my hours and hours of work to waste.  Being the so-called 'creative' person, tried hard to think of salvaging my house.

Then, yes, the idea came.  The only problem I'm having is the roof, right?  All I need to do is to keep it together - logically, it has to be connected at the top and stay as a 'triangle'.  Since the 'glue frosting' doesn't work, well, I could use ribbon to hold it together and yet make it look like a present!  Oh yes, that might work and it did!  Phew!  Next year, if I want to make this again, got to search for a better 'sticking frosting' than this one.  Anyway, please click this link on how to make this.

There you go... my first ever Gingerbread house.  It is surrounded by Black Russian Brownies.  Scroll down to the bottom for the recipe.

Dinner's done, and now all set to go at tearing down the house and pop it into the mouth.  The kids having fun at 'destroying' the house..that's what this is all about.  FUN!

 Oh! My poor chimney chin chin!

Next, the roof... they don't have a problem at tearing that down!.... kakakkaka

My nephew is such a joker.  He told me that I have to make a 'double storey gingerbread house'  for next Christmas! Yeah rite.. you are so funny, my 'bigger than me' nephew.. wakakak kakak akaka!  Errr.. you are joking right??

Black Russian Brownies
115g bittersweet chocolate, broken into pieces
115g unsalted butter
1/2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
4 eggs, beaten
1 1/4 cup superfine sugar (I used 1 cup)
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp Kahlua liqueur
2 tbsp vodka
1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup chopped walnut

1. Pre-heat oven to 180dC.  Prepare pan with parchment paper.
2. Melt the choc and butter with the peppercorns in small pan over low heat. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.
3. Beat together the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract in large bowl and stir in the choc mixture, Kahlua and vodka.
4. Sift the flour and baking powder and stir evenly into the choc mixture.  Stir in the walnut, pour into pan and bake for 20-25 mins or until done.
5. Let cool and cut into pieces.

We celebrated our daughter's birthday together with Christmas.  This will be featured in my next post on her Durian Little Pony Unicorn Cake theme.

MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!