Gingerbread House

Gingerbread is one of things that show off the small differences between otherwise quite similar countries and cultures. While I (being Norwegian) get excited about gingerbread houses around Christmas time, my English friends wonder what all the fuss is about – after all you can buy the stuff in the shops all year round. But there is, at least for me, something special about making gingerbread houses for Christmas; it’s the smell, the fun of the decoration, and not least smashing and eating it in the end.

150ml sugar

100ml golden syrup

150ml whole milk

50g butter

½ tablespoon cinnamon

½ tablespoon ground ginger

½ teaspoon ground cloves

½ teaspoon baking powder

500g flour

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

icing sugar, fruit gums and chocolates for decorating

sugar for assembling the house

The dough should rest in the fridge for 24 hours before being used, but will last for about 4 weeks if wrapped well in cling film.

Warm the sugar, golden syrup, butter and spices over low heat in a pan, until the sugar has dissolved. Stir continually to prevent it from sticking and getting burnt. Remove from the heat, and add the milk gradually while stirring. Leave the mixture to cool.

Mix the baking powder, xanthan gum and four together, and sift these little by little into the mixture. You should be left with quite a firm dough.

Cover the dough in clingfilm and leave in the fridge for about 24 hours. This allows the flavours to develop.

Roll the dough out on a smooth surface lightly dusted with flour. You want to roll it until it’s about 1cm thick. You can now cut out shapes for gingerbread men, or walls and roofs for a house. There are several web sites that offer free patterns for houses, or you could make your own if you are adventurous.

Bake on 200^OC for about 15 minutes, depending on the size of the shapes.

Leave the shapes on a wire rack to cool. Once they are cool you can decorate with icing and sweets. It’s easier to do this before assembling the pieces into a house. For sticking house-parts together, either use icing, or melted sugar. Be aware that melted sugar is extremely hot, so it is very easy to burn yourself – if you go for this option please be careful.

Marzipan

A friend from Norway came to visit a little while ago, and the way he talked about his yearly Christmas marzipan-making inspired me to try it as well. It is quite straight-forward, but there is a little bit of hard work at the end when combining the ingredients into a sticky marzipan. You can use it for all sorts of things, and you can adjust the level to which you grind the almonds according to your own taste. I’m planning to use some of mine to cover my Christmas cake, and I’ve also made some small figures dipped in chocolate. You could give it to a friend as a present, or you could enjoy it all by yourself. The possibilities are endless.

300g almonds

300g icing sugar

1 egg white

15ml brandy

Finely grind the almonds in a food processor or any other type of mincer/grinder.  Place the almonds in a large bowl, and sift the icing sugar into it. Stir well using a large spoon. Add the egg white and brandy, and use your hands to work the mix into a firm and sticky ball. At first it will seem quite dry, but as you work it the oils from the almonds will be released, and it soon resembles marzipan. This is a little bit of hard work, but it is well worth it, just stick with it until you are satisfied with the level of stickiness.

If you’re not using it straight away, wrap it well in clingfilm, as it does tend to dry out quicker than the shop bought stuff (because it doesn’t contain all the preserving chemicals they use). You can melt chocolate and dip small pieces of it in this, or you can roll it out and cover cakes with it. Or you can eat it in its unadulterated form. Enjoy. 

Risotto-filled Squash

I’ve been thinking about making filled squash for a while now, early winter is a good time to do this as there is usually quite a variety on offer this time of year. They are not only packed full of vitamins, but also delicious and filling. A whole squash filled with something exciting is quite a fun food to serve – it works really well when you’ve got friends over for dinner. I made this with one medium sized squash, because that’s what the shops had to offer this week, but you can get smaller ones to use as individual serving dishes.

Serves 2

1 medium size onion squash (or any other round squash)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon herbal salt

4 cloves of garlic

1 large onion

1 teaspoon dried thyme

150g Carnaroli rice

approx. 10g dried porcini mushrooms

100ml boiling water

500ml vegetable stock

a small chunk of parmesan or any other hard cheese

Pre-heat your oven to 170^OC.

Slice the top off the squash, and put this to one side. Dig out the seeds and stringy pulp and discard these. Pour ½ a tablespoon of olive oil into the squash, sprinkle the herbal salt in, and add 2 whole cloves of garlic. These will infuse the flesh of the squash with their lovely flavours.

Place the squash and its top in the middle of the oven, and bake for 30 minutes. If you are using two smaller squash they will need shorter cooking time.

Tear the porcini into small pieces, place in a mug, and add boiling water. Let this rest while you start making the risotto, to soften the mushroom and bring out the flavour. This will give you a beautiful mushroom stock that you will use in the risotto a bit later on.

Warm 1 ½ tablespoons of oil in a large sautéing pan, chop the onion, and add this to the oil when hot. Sweat for a few minutes until the onions are soft and golden. Finely chop 2 cloves of garlic and add to the onion. Also now add the dried thyme.

Check on the squash in the oven to make sure it is getting cooked but not burned.

Add the rice to the onion and stir well. Give it a minute under constant stirring to soak up the flavour that’s already in the pan, before adding a ladle-full of stock. Keep stirring, as risotto will very easily stick to the bottom of the pan. Gradually add more and more stock, but let the rice soak up one portion before adding more. Add the porcini and its stock about half-way through the adding of the vegetable stock.

Keep stirring and adding stock until the rice is cooked. It should be slightly al-dente, but moist and soft at the same time. You’ll know when you’re there.

Take the squash out of the oven if it’s soft and ready cooked. It shouldn’t get so soft that it’s mushy, but should keep its structure even when it’s ready to eat. Remove the whole garlic, and use a spoon to carefully carve out a little bit of flesh from the inside. Add this to the risotto and stir in before spooning the risotto into the squash.  Grate some cheese on top and serve. (If using 1 squash; slice it in two vertically so that you both get both flesh and filling.)

Wagamama in York – Monday 12 December 2011

Wagamama has finally opened in York, their first day of service was today. I had expected there to be a massive queue and that it would be impossible to get a table, but this was not so. It was fairly full, but with a few free tables here and there. Nevertheless, the waiters and chefs seemed to be keeping busy; getting into the routine of the place no doubt.

Walking into the restaurant was very much like stepping into any other Wagamama restaurant, as they do have their own very distinctive style. Light and airy, modernisticly simple, and yet welcoming. It is streamlined for effectiveness, with every person working there having their own particular task, like seating guests, bringing menus, taking orders, or taking payment. I can see it being a bit tedious for the staff members, but from an organisational point of view it must be very efficient and thus profitable. 

The menu had a lot of choice on it, mainly meaty dishes, but also at least one vegetarian choice in each category of food. I’m sure it would be possible to spend quite a lot of money at Wagamama’s, if you choose to have both starters and side courses and drinks, but it is also possible to keep it economical. Most main dishes are below £10, and if you choose to drink green tea, that’s free.

I chose the “yasai katsu curry”, which was a very tasty and lovely dish. There were deep-fried sweet potato, aubergine and butternut squash, with sticky white rice and a curry sauce. For dessert I had the Chocolate fudge cake with dark chocolate wasabi sauce and vanilla pod ice cream. I was initially a bit worried about the wasabi in the chocolate sauce, not being a fan of hot flavours, but it turned out to be lovely. My friend had the ginger cheese cake, which was also very tasty.

There was some unfortunate confusion amongst the waiters, with food being brought to the wrong tables, but I would assume that this was down to inexperience with the menu and service system; it was after all their first night of service. And it was not enough to ruin the experience, as they were all very friendly and very quickly corrected any mistakes. The food, prepared by chefs on display along the wall of the restaurant, arrived promptly, and both looked and tasted delicious.

I had a lovely meal at Wagamama’s, and would love to go back there very soon. 

Winter Soup

There’s nothing like a bowl of warming soup on a cold winter’s day. Not only does it warm you up all the way to your toes, it also fills you up with lots of vitamin goodness. This soup uses cabbage and swede, ingredients that are not only full of vitamins, but also usually quite cheap. The lentils add a bit of useful protein. Make sure that the soup is left to simmer for at least 30 minutes, as the lentils need this time to become ready.

Serves 2

1 large onion

1 tablespoon olive oil

a pinch herbal salt

1 teaspoon Herbes de Provence

1 large carrot

200g swede

150g white cabbage

1 litre vegetable stock

50g curly kale

50g red split lentils

2 tablespoons tomato puree

salt and pepper to taste

bread and cheese to serve

Chop the onion into small pieces and sauté with the olive oil in a large saucepan. Add a pinch of salt and the dried herbs. Chop the carrot, swede and cabbage into small pieces and add to the pan. Stir occasionally.

Make a litre of vegetable stock, and add to the pan. The stock should be made with warm water, so as not to reduce the cooking temperature of the soup. Chop the curly kale into pieces, and add to the soup, and then add the lentils.

Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the tomato puree, and simmer for another 15 minutes.

Finally add freshly ground salt and pepper to taste.  

If serving with bread and cheese, toast the bread, then add to the soup once you have dished it up into individual heat proof dishes. Grate cheese on top, and place under the grill for a minute until the cheese has melted. 

Apple Jelly Jam with a hint of Cinnamon

I had thought that I was too late for foraging apples this year, but when I was out cycling last week I spotted a tree full of crab apples. Being me, I stepped on my brakes and backtracked to get back to the tree I had just passed. A bit of stretching and fetching later, and I had a backpack full of apples to take home.

There are many methods for making jelly jam, but I find the one I used here to be the easiest one. You can use the same recipe for other fruits as well, or you can use other spices with the apples.

It is best to use fruit that is only just ripe, as their pectin content is higher than in over-ripe fruit.

Makes 5 small jars of jelly

1kg apples

200ml water

¼ cinnamon stick

800g sugar per litre of juice

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Chop the apples into chunks. Check that there are no brown bits, chop these away if there are. There is no need to get rid of the pips, just remove the stalks.


Place the apples in a large saucepan, crunch the cinnamon stick and mix it in with the apples, and add the water. Gently warm the fruit over low heat. The slower you heat the fruit the more liquid is released, and the more jam you get. Leave the apples to gently cook for about an hour. You do not want them to boil, just to be warm.


Drain the apples through a muslin cloth into a bowl. Arrange the cloth so that the apples can hang and drain for a couple of hours. Squeeze the bag a little bit to release more liquid, but not too much, or the jelly will become cloudy.

Measure how much juice you now have. The amount of juice will depend on the ripeness of the apples, and the type of apple used. Pour the juice into a saucepan, and bring to the boil. Add the sugar and ground cinnamon, and boil rapidly for 2 to 20 minutes, until the juice stiffens when you do the spoon test.The cooking time depends on the pectin levels of the fruit. 

Pour the jam into warm sterilised jars. I made 5 jars full of jam, but it’s always useful to prepare more jars than what you think you’ll need, just in case, so that you won’t have to do the whole sterilising process twice. 

Spoon Test

The spoon test is a very useful trick when making jam and marmalades. It shows you how stiff your product is, and whether it needs further boiling.

Take a cool plate and a cold spoon. Use a different spoon to place about half a teaspoon of jam on the plate. With the cold spoon, trace a line through the jam. If the ‘canal’ that you’ve just created fills back in, then the jam needs further cooking. If the ‘canal’ stays open, then the jam is finished. 

Soft Chocolate Brownies

I was looking for something yummy to make the other day, when came across this recipe in Stéphan Lagorce’s  book “Chocolat”. I reversed the amounts of almonds and flour, and the flour I used was gluten free, but apart from that I was fairly true to the original recipe.

As it turned out, these brownies were just as delicious as I had imagined, it was very hard not to eat them all at once.  

200g dark chocolate

3 eggs

120g caster sugar

130g butter

50g ground almonds

1 ½ tablespoons flour

½ teaspoon of ground cinnamon

120g walnuts

Pre-heat the oven to 180^OC, and grease a small baking tin.

Break up the chocolate into small pieces and melt gently over low heat in a saucepan. Make sure you don’t overheat the chocolate.

Break the eggs into a bowl and stir in the sugar. Mix with an electric mixer until fluffy. Fold in the butter using the electric mixer, it helps if this is soft and at room temperature. Add the almonds, flour and cinnamon and stir. Pour in the melted chocolate and stir until the colour is uniform. Finally chop the walnuts and fold them into the dough.

Pour the dough into the greased tin, place in the oven, and bake for about 25 minutes. The cake will be a bit sticky when coming out of the oven, so allow an hour or two before cutting into pieces and serving.