Gingerbread House #2

Two years ago I made my first gingerbread house, with mixed results! This year I had another go. In fact, it was a group effort. I baked and assembled the thing and then got a couple of friends to decorate it. It was definitely more successful than last time. I seem to have mastered the art of keeping it standing up, which is good! In fact, it was still standing even when it only consisted of one wall, which is quite impressive.
I used the gingerbread recipe from Bake by Rachel Allen, which was a real pain in the bum to work with. You have to roll it out on the baking paper and slide it onto the baking tray - any attempt to lift or move it will surely end in disaster. However, it did taste good - and make enough for a house plus several batches of gingerbread biscuits. 

So, as I still haven't quite reached gingerbread house perfection, here's this year's list of lessons learnt:

• Always double check the dimensions of your bits of house. In this case, the two bits of roof didn't reach the middle. I was reliably informed by mathematically literate people that this is the fault of the recipe book, not mine. But, as I cut the templates out in paper, it wouldn't have taken a mo to check that the edges all matched up. 
• Flakes make wonderful thatching when there's a big hole in your roof. And excellent chimneys.
• Icing made of 250g icing sugar / one egg white whisked up together is pretty much edible concrete and just the ticket for sticking a gingerbread house together. But next time another kind of icing that is thinner and solidifies less quickly would be better for decorating. 
• Don't get carried away with cutting out windows - remember you're going to have decorate all of them. Or your friends are. This house was a two storey number with a total of 10 windows, which lead to a few complaints as the ladies arranged lines of silver balls around each one.
• Decorating a gingerbread house is an excellent festive group activity. In fact, there was talk of other festivities that could be marked with gingerbread. A Valentine's Day gingerbread house of love? An  Easter gingerbread chicken coop? The possibilities are, as they say, endless.  

 Happy New Year!

Hot dogs

Last night was the finale of series 2 of The Killing. You were watching, right? Personally I'm a jumper-obsessed Killing addict (with a slight crush on Brix this series) and generally getting very into all things Scandinavian. Mr ‘Splorer and I even took a little trip to Copenhagen in November (top travel tip: fly to Malmö in Sweden – it’s much cheaper and Malmö’s main station is a half hour train journey from Copenhagen central station). Even in early November, it was pretty much the most Christmassy place I’ve ever been – everywhere you turned there was another Christmas market or other festive excitement. 

Eating our way around the city we discovered the wonders of (amongst other things) ...

... authentic Scandinavian cinnamon buns ...

 ... gløgg (mulled wine with fruit and nuts at the bottom) ...

... and the best hot dogs of my life from the stands on the street. 

So when we wanted a suitable snack to accompany the last two episodes of The Killing, I thought of hot dogs. Really good hot dogs with homemade buns and proper sausages and all the toppings. What could possibly be better? 

A quick Google got me to a Dan Lepard recipe for Onion seed hot dog rolls with fried onions and black onion seeds. I would really recommend the recipe for a really flavoursome, soft and chewy hot dog roll. I followed Dan's recipe exactly, so I won't write it out again. There's a total of 2 and a half hours of raising time, so not really for when you're in hurry, but it's really easy. Here's what it looks like: 

 

Then serve with ketchup, mayo, mustard, gherkins and crispy onions, which it turns out you can buy in little pots for that authentic Copenhagen feel to your hot dogs. Oh, and a bottle of Tuborg and, if you've got one handy, a fine Scandinavian detective drama. 

The great thing about these buns is that they have enough flavour to stand up against all those toppings. The challenge is now on to find a sausage that can do the same. I'm definitely going to have to eat a lot of hot dogs to sort that one out.