Holiday Gingerbread Men

My memories are inside me—they’re not things or a place—I can take them anywhere. – Olivia Newton-John 

Today, post number seven of my 12 Posts of Christmas, is all about sweet memories. Hopefully they will "burn bright" this Friday the 13th. This is the coldest morning we've had since the dead of last winter. It's about -14°C. Brrr.

We may not be able to physically relive our memories, but we can certainly trigger them by our actions. Often that is via food. These cookies remind me of my mother, father and sister, and growing up on the South Shore of Nova Scotia.

We used to go grocery shopping on Fridays in Liverpool. There was a bakery on Market Street called Semone's Bakery. It was "the" bakery in Liverpool.

It was in an old Victorian storefront with wide glass windows and a recessed entry. When you opened the door you were surrounded by glass-faced counters on three sides, filled with all manner of homemade breads, rolls and sweets. 

Three treats that I remember are the fantastic “egg tarts,” sugar cookies and these delicious little men.

The gingerbread men stood out because they had no fancy decoration. The eyes and buttons were nothing more than red food colouring. But in our eyes they were decorated with gold. They were large, too, standing at at about 6" tall.

Slightly firm and slightly spicy, they were a treat for us on the drive home, if we were good while Mom and dad were shopping. We had to have something to occupy us on the half hour drive.

The bakery and its recipes are long gone, but the happy memory remains. Baking these cookies is a way for me to reconnect with happy times gone by.

Successful gifting is all about giving to someone what they would not give themselves, but would appreciate. Think of the joy you can give with a dozen gingerbread men in a small basket or in cellophane bags tied with ribbon? 

Although perfect as a Christmas gift, these gingerbread men will be sure to make wonderful memories any time of the year.

Gingerbread Men

Prep: 10 min  |  Refrig: 1 hr  |  Roll & bake: 30 min  |  Yield 24-28 with a 4" cutter

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1/2 cup sugar 

1/2 cup fancy molasses 

1 egg

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder 

1/2 tsp baking soda 

1 tsp ground cinnamon 

1 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp ginger 

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour 

red food colouring

Cream the butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl. Add the molasses and egg and beat again.

Next add the salt, baking powder, baking soda and all the spices. Stir to combine.

Add the flour, one cup at a time, beating it in well after each addition.

Scrape all the dough onto some plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour, or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Dust a rolling board with flour. Roll the chilled dough out to about 1/4” thickness and cut out with a cookie cutter. Arrange on a baking sheet, with a little space in between. The cookies will spread slightly.

Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and let sit on the tray for 2 minutes, then remove to a rack. Do not stack the cookies while warm or they may stick together.

In a few minutes the cookies will firm up.

Bring any remaining dough together, re-roll and cut until all the dough is used.

To decorate add 3 drops of red food colouring to 1 tablespoon of water. Dot the cookies with a small paint brush for eyes and buttons.

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Dining in Halifax drove me to Anchovies

Just sit right back, And you'll hear a tale, A tale of a fateful trip, That started from this tropic port, Aboard this tiny ship. (if you’re of a certain age you know what that is.)

The solution to bad dining experiences in Halifax.

Or, as I like to call it, "the reason you take your chances when boarding the ferry in Dartmouth to dine out in Halifax."

When I visit my spouse at college we try to pack as much activity and enjoyment into 2 days as possible. We’re kind of “dating” again, which is really nice. Of course an important part of the whole process is eating.

One restaurant that we thoroughly enjoyed was Bistro Le Coq, a French restaurant on Argyle Street. Loved, loved, loved it. We had exceptionally good luck dining for the month of September, except for this weekend. It was an unmitigated disaster.

It all started on Friday night when three of us went out to eat. You know the phrase: “you can never go home again.” Well, you can never go back to your favourite bar again, either. I’m talking the Economy Shoe Shop. You used to be able to set the Town Clock by our arrival.

I always loved their nachos, and Marty always knew when to come by to see if you were “ready for another.” You used to get good food and friendly service there. We received neither. If I could have left a negative tip I would have.

The food, significantly more than sub-par, was expensive for what you received (not like before) and our waiter spoke so fast you could hardly understand what he was saying. The food was so bad that we ended up going to The Old Triangle for something else to eat to get the taste out of our mouths. 

Let me elucidate. The nachos were a mess – undercooked, cheap tasting cheese, too few actual chips, served with salsa that probably was from a jar. Enough said there. Easy to understand. 

We also had the Build-a-Board Antipasti. It starts at $3. It is “an assortment of artisan breads, house made chutneys and pickled onions.” You can add fresh fruit, olives and sun-dried tomatoes for $6. Additionally you can add cheese, cured meat and smoked salmon for $8 more.

We shot the works for $17. What did we get?The "assortment of artisan breads" was slices of dried, round bread. No “assortment,” unless they meant "more than one piece"...

The house-made chutneys consisted of blueberry and peach. You could tell blueberry season just ended. There was three times as much of it as the peach. The peaches had to have come from a can. A cheap can. Both chutneys were overbearingly cinnamon-y. At the time I said that they tasted like the inside of Cricket on the Hearth smells – Christmassy. And not in a good way.

The $6 addition consisted of 7-8 olives, around a dozen blueberries (a small assortment plate where the same ingredient is used twice?!?), four wafers of pear and 3 sun-dried tomato halves. 

But it gets better. For $8 extra, you get 3 small triangles of herbed havarti, two rolls of some sort of packaged sliced Italian meat and two pieces of smoked salmon.

Seriously? Not a good experience and one I will never repeat.

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Saturday night wasn’t any better. A couple weeks before we tried to dine at The Bicycle Thief, a trendy restaurant on the waterfront, but couldn’t because they were too busy. That's a good sign, so we tried again.

I can’t comment on the food, or wine, because we received neither. We were seated at the bar, which usually isn’t too awful an experience. But their bar was cramped – four chairs in a 5 foot space. We received menus and a wine list. But then we were completely forgotten. 

Should have put on six anchovies.

We waited a full 15 minutes and no one even so much as came by to ask us if we would like something to drink. The busy bar staff assiduously avoided eye contact with all of us sitting at the bar.

That’s a real shame, because I had my eye on a $90 bottle of wine. We could have dropped $200 on dinner easily. I was hungry.

But after 15 minutes we picked up our coats and left. I don’t even think anyone said “thank you” or “see you again” when we exited. We could have been there eating for hours for all they knew...

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Next stop, Pipa, a new-ish Portuguese restaurant on Argyle Street. Once again we waited and waited and waited and waited for someone to take our order. There were probably 12 patrons in the whole place. What gives? Are people incompetent, lazy or a combination of both?

But since we were exceptionally hungry we decided to order. Our server informed us they had very little red wine (in contrast to several on the wine list). So we opted for a Portuguese beer. There were two on the menu. They had neither.

Saturday night, in September – cruise ship time, and you have hardly any wine and no signature beer? I bet if we had ordered the Feijoada - their "Brazil's national Dish" (served only on weekends) they wouldn’t have had that either. So we showed our displeasure with the soles of our shoes.

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By this time we were pretty weary of poor service in Halifax’s finest dining establishments, but we made it to one last place: Baton Rouge.

As you can imagine our annoyance and disgust was almost palpable. We escorted to a (dirty) table, and when we asked for a clean one our second option was dirty as well. But by this time we weren’t even in the mood to eat. So we went back across via the ferry without so much as a crust of bread to show for our effort.

Saturday night left a metaphorical bad taste in our mouths, and Friday night a literal one.

The moral of this fateful trip? I have no idea, but writing about it certainly was cathartic. I guess, if anything, be careful of where you choose to dine in Halifax if you like your food “good” or “in a reasonable amount of time.” 

And if the entire population of Halifax thinks somewhere is good, then it’s probably not. It’s just trendy. This I know from past, as well as this weekend’s, experience.

So I’m in the mood for some real food, and for me that's anchovies. Lots of anchovies. I’m going to fry me a sandwich. 

This recipe is actually an Italian classic. It will be the first decent food I’ve had since Thursday.

Fried Mozzarella & Anchovy Sandwich

Time: about 10 min  |  Makes 1 really good sandwich

2 thick slices of sturdy bread

1 cm thick slice of mozzarella, about 150g

anchovy filets, to taste

torn oregano leaves

sprinkle of pepper

1/4 cup milk

1 egg

flour, mixed with salt and pepper

olive oil for frying

Place the mozzarella on the face of one slice of bread. Lay as many anchovy filets as you wish on top of the cheese. Then add the oregano and some black pepper. Close the sandwich up.

Heat a good amount of olive oil (1/4” deep) in a small skillet until it is fragrant. Reduce the heat to medium.

Take two plates. Mix the milk and egg together on one; the flour, salt and pepper on another. Dip the sandwich in the egg mixture, letting it soak a little and coating both sides well. Then dredge in the flour.

Place the sandwich in the hot oil and let it cook until the cheese has softened and the bread is deliciously crunchy and brown on both sides.

Remove from the heat, hide in a corner, snarl and devour it.

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Homemade Cardamom Sweet Rolls

A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body. – Benjamin Franklin 

Warm from the oven. The best time to enjoy these.

After the blistering weekend it seems we have been given a bit of a rest here in Nova Scotia. Rain started late yesterday afternoon and has continued into the morning.

I’m sure our garden is loving it. Unfortunately it kind of means that we’re a bit “trapped” inside, at least until it starts to clear off this afternoon.

With the rain has come cooler temperatures so the inside of the house isn’t as much like an oven as it was. It is a little on the unpleasant side to cook meals when the weather is hot. Turning on the oven only increases the heat inside your home.

But today, not so much. And since there’s not much one can do outside in the yard, how about a homey baking recipe? But a homey recipe with a twist...

Bread is one baked good that conjures remembrances of hearth, home, comfort and love. Sweet rolls ratchet it up a notch, in my lowly opinion.

This recipe, a delicious twist on cinnamon buns, is no exception. Think about a light, moist dough – flavoured with sugar, eggs, milk and cardamom – wrapping a spicy, sugary filling with more cardamom. Mmmm…

Best served still warm from the oven, they’re good cooled too, if they last that long. 

One word of advice. Sweet rolls really should be eaten within 2 or 3 days of baking because, like any dough, they loose that freshness we value so much.

Grocery store baking, complete with preservatives, will last for much, much longer. I guess that’s the price we pay for having the care to bake for our families.

Try these. It’s a rainy day. You won’t regret it.

The risen dough is rolled to 16"x10", spread with butter and sprinkled
with the cardamom sugar.

Cardamom Sweet Rolls

Prep: 3 hrs 15 min  |  Bake: 35 min  |  Yield: 12 large rolls

4 cups flour

2 tsp yeast

1 cup milk, at 110-115°F

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

1/3 cup butter, melted (or margarine)

1/2 tsp cardamom, ground (or mace)

Spice Filling

1/4 cup butter, softened

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cardamom, ground

1/4 cup sugar

melted butter for brushing tops

Roll up with the longest side facing you. Divide into 12 even slices.

Confectioner’s Icing

1 cup confectioner’s icing

2 tbsp milk

2 tsp white corn syrup

1/2 tsp vanilla

pinch of salt

Proof the yeast in the warm milk and sugar until creamy. Add to a large ceramic bowl. Add the salt, eggs, melted butter and cardamom. Mix well and then add the flour. Bring the mixture together and knead the dough for five minutes. 

Place the dough back in the bowl. Cover with plastic and a tea towel. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

Space evenly in a well buttered baking dish...

...and let rise until doubled.

Mix together the sugar, cinnamon and cardamom. Roll out the  dough to 16” x 10”. If you like thinner dough (and more spiral) roll the dough out to 16" x 16".

Rub the flattened dough with the butter then sprinkle with the sugar mixture. Roll up along the 16” dimension and slice into 12 equal pieces. Arrange, cut sides up in a well buttered 10” x 14” oven proof dish.

Cover with plastic and a tea towel and let rise again until doubled, about 1 hour. 

Bake and then drizzle with the confectioner's icing. Mmmm...

Bake at 375°F for 30-35 min. Let cool 5 minutes and then drizzle with the confectioners icing.

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Questions? Comments? Derogatory remarks? Just ask! I’ll answer quickly and as best as I can. If you like this post feel free to share it. If you repost, please give me credit and a link back to this site.

Easter Baking: Hot Cross Buns!

My mom used to say Greek Easter was later because you got stuff cheaper. – Amy Sedaris

Light, fluffy, spicy and sweet. What more can one ask?

Some things are very seasonal. Pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving and barbecue in the summer are two good examples. So are hot cross buns at Easter. Try to find them in a bakery any time other than the week before. Impossible.

That's a shame because they're delicious. Hot cross buns are a sweet bread roll with spice and currants – or raisins – and icing in a cross shape on top. They're kind of like a sticky bun in a different shape (and without all the sticky). What's not to love?

After kneading, before first rise. Currants will fall out as you
knead. Just stick them back in the dough.

For success you need to find a recipe that gives you moist buns. I have a perfect one, courtesy of my much-loved Great Aunt Hilda, or more accurately her handwritten cookbook. Her recipe dates from at least the 1960s, and probably quite a bit earlier. My recipe is almost identical, but of course I couldn't leave well enough alone... I fiddled with the spice amounts.

The amount of both the spice and currants can be adjusted to your own liking. I find “store-bought” very frugal on both counts.

There’s actually some interesting history surrounding these spiced, moist buns. Read on.

After first rise.

History and Folklore

Abridged from Wikipedia

Hot cross buns are traditionally eaten on Good Friday, with the cross standing as a symbol of the Crucifixion. They are believed by some to pre-date Christianity, although the first recorded use of the term "hot cross bun" was not until 1733.

It is believed that buns marked with a cross were eaten by Saxons in honour of the goddess Eostre (the cross is thought to have symbolized the four quarters of the moon); "Eostre" is probably the origin of the name "Easter". Others claim that the Greeks marked cakes with a cross, much earlier.

One superstition says that buns baked and served on Good Friday will not spoil or become mouldy during the subsequent year. Another encourages keeping such a bun for medicinal purposes. A piece of it given to someone who is ill was said to help them recover.

Sharing a hot cross bun with another person is supposed to ensure friendship throughout the coming year, particularly if "Half for you and half for me, Between us two shall goodwill be" is said at the time.  If taken on a sea voyage, hot cross buns are said to protect against shipwreck. If hung in the kitchen, they are said to protect against fires and ensure that all breads turn out perfectly. 

So rolls that will last a whole year, eh? I doubt that quite a lot. These never last more than a day or two in my house! These are excellent, and 8-12 will be nowhere near enough if you have family coming. So double the recipe. They always make a good gift.

Hot cross buns only take a few hours to make, and most of that time is in waiting for the dough to rise, so there’s really no reason you can’t start them in the morning, do whatever you need to do during the day, and come back and finish the process.

They’re well worth the very minimal effort.

Here's a useful kitchen hint. Buying yeast in packets can be expensive if you do a fair amount of baking. Buy yeast at a bulk food store and place it in a jar in your freezer. It does nothing to the yeast and will last for months and months, remaining as fresh as when you bought it.

Also, don't forget today is Thursday. Depending on where you live stores are closed tomorrow (Good Friday), open on Saturday and then closed again on Easter Sunday. So if you have to do any holiday shopping (turkey, ham, roast, whatever) do it today to avoid disappointment!

Dividing into 8 makes large-ish buns...12 makes more manageable
sized buns but take a few minutes more to bake.

Old-Fashioned Hot Cross Buns

Prep: 20 min  |  Rise: 2-2.5 hours  |  Makes 8-12 buns

3/4 cup water, heated to 110°F

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup powdered milk

1/4 cup white sugar

1 tbsp active dry yeast 

1 cup dried currants

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon 

1/2 tsp allspice (or nutmeg)

2 lg eggs 

3 cups unbleached flour

3/4 cup confectioners' sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 

3 tsp coffee cream

Heat the water, powdered milk, butter and sugar in a small saucepan until the butter is melted and the liquid reaches a temperature of 110°F. If it's any warmer you'll kill the yeast when you add it.

Sprinkle the yeast over the top of the liquid. Stir gently, cover and let sit for 10-15 minutes to proof. At the end of the time the yeast should be creamy. If not, throw it out and start again with fresh yeast.

Icing in a plastic bag ready to apply.

Place the currants in a large bowl. Add the salt, cinnamon, allspice, eggs and proofed yeast liquid. Mix well and then add the flour. Stir until it comes together, then transfer to a board and knead for 5 minutes. The dough will still be “wet” but won’t stick to your hands or the board.

Place back in the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and a tea towel and let rise in a warm spot until doubled. This will take about 2 hours. (I didn't have as warm a spot as usual for my bread and my first rise was 2.5 hours...)

At the end of the rise, punch down and divide into 8-12 equal balls. 8 balls make good sized buns, 12 make the number of apostles…

Arrange the balls in an 8” x 8” oven-proof dish. Let rise again until doubled, about 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 375°F. Just before baking cut a small cross in the top of each bun. This will help the icing stay on top in a cross shape.

Bake for 20-25 minutes (30 min if making 8 because they're larger). Remove from the oven and rub with butter. Let the buns cool for 10 minutes.

Mix together the confectioner’s sugar, vanilla and cream. Place in a plastic bag, snip off the end, and squeeze a cross on the top of each bun.

My "crosses" leave a little to be desired. I think I snipped too big an end off my
icing bag. It should only be 1/4" wide.

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Questions? Comments? Derogatory remarks? Just ask! I’ll answer quickly and as best as I can. If you like this post feel free to share it. If you repost, please give me credit and a link back to this site.

Baking: Apple Cardamom Buns in Sweet Cream Dough

Mick Jagger is about as sexy as a pissing toad. – Truman Capote 

No resemblance to Mick Jagger.

Food porn. That’s the best words I have heard to describe the over the top "sexy" way food and food photography is portrayed now online and on TV.

It’s an apt term, and I’m guilty of my fair share of proliferation. I only wish that my photographs were sexier. I also wish that computers had smell-evision or taste-evision. Some recipes would really make that technology investment worthwhile.

The dough rised overnight.

I say thank goodness for sexy food pictures. We do eat with our eyes first. Ask any restauranteur if they take care in the presentation of their dishes. I bet even if they don’t they wouldn’t admit it. Positive expectation is half the consumer battle.

Of course food porn can be taken to extremes. With the rise of pinterest (guilty) and instrgram (not yet...) some diners are beginning to make pests of themselves. Mostly their intentions are good – sharing something wondrous; for others it’s bragging. But pest they can be, especially to other diners. 

There are some chefs now that refuse to allow diners to take pictures of their food. I can sympathize if you have some wiener standing on his or her chair to get “just the right angle”... I'm paying for ambiance as much as food. Acrobatics (unless a floor show) isn't on my menu.

A pan full of kitchen love.

Of course taking photos of food you prepare yourself is fair game. I just wish I was better at it, even though I took several photography courses at NSCAD. A poor craftsman blames his tools, it is said. I blame my point-and-shoot.

Hopefully my photos with this post do this recipe justice. These buns are worthy of being food porn. Just amazing.

Of course my intentions are twofold: first to illustrate how things are done, and second to make it appetizing enough that you’ll want to make them.

If you could be in our kitchen right now, as they are cooling, and smell them, you’d go running for your yeast instantly.

Do you think I believe these are good? Well they are. This dough is a cousin of the dough I made for my old fashioned cinnamon rolls (recipe here), with some specific differences.

The first is the overnight rise and the second is no eggs. I substituted cream for richness, so the dough is slightly less fluffy, but no less delicious.

Mixing the dough and letting it sit is actually n work. Making the buns the next day is maybe 20 minutes hands on time, and uses common ingredients. 

If you’ve never had apples and cardamom together you’re really missing a match made in heaven. Would you like another?

Apple Cardamom Buns in Sweet Cream Dough

Prep: Overnight  |  Bake: 40-45 min  |  Yield 9 buns

dough

1/2 cup melted butter

1 cup water

1/2 cup 18% cream

2 tbsp sugar

2-1/2 tsp yeast

1/2 tsp salt

3-1/2 cups unbleached flour

2 granny smith apples

1/4 cup + 1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp sugar

1/4 cup turbinado sugar

2 tsp ground cardamom

glaze

1 cup confectioner’s sugar

2 tbsp cream

2 tsp white corn syrup

Melt the butter. Combine it with the water and cream in a large bowl. Mix in the sugar, yeast and salt. Then stir in the flour until the mixture comes together fairly smoothly.

Cover with plastic wrap and a towel and let rise on the counter overnight (at least 12 hours).

The next day pare and core the apples. Chop into fairly small pieces (less than 1/2” in size). 

Melt 1 tbsp of the butter in a sauté pan and add the apples and sugar. Cook the apples just until they are no longer crisp, about 2 minutes. Do not cook until soft or the apple pieces may disappear when baked.

Roll the risen dough out on a floured board to 16” x 12”. Take the remaining butter and dot the surface of the dough. Sprinkle the surface with the sugar and then the cardamom. Then arrange the slightly cooked apple pieces on the top.

Working with the 16” dimension facing you, ease the dough up over itself and roll into a log. Square up the ends so the entire log is nearly the same thickness. Measure into thirds and cut. Then cut each third in three pieces.

Butter a 9” x 9” baking pan and arrange the rolls in three rows of three. Cover lightly with plastic wrap and let rise for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Bake the rolls in the middle of the oven for between 40-45 minutes.

Let cool slightly. Mix the glaze ingredients in a small bowl and pour over the still-warm buns. Serve immediately.

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