What happened to NYDC Day#9? To be honest, I wrapped presents all night, and since one day is only 24 hours, I couldn’t make anything else. I know, I broke the laws of the challenge. But since it is my challenge, I can make my own laws and I decided to rest one day, just as in running.

But today was the big day, gingerbread cookie day. As you may remember, I bake Gingerbread Cookies for New Year’s Eve every year. This time, I used the previous recipe, because it was so good. I was also planning to finally make a gingerbread house. But I failed epically. Reasons:

• I used a sugar and milk based icing instead of royal icing, which requires egg whites. I normally avoid using that royal icing because of uncooked egg whites. But the icing I use takes a long time to harden. So I couldn’t assemble the house. It collapsed!
• The butter I used in the icing was not in room temperature, so I couldn’t cream it properly (and I was also too lazy to think about that). So, the icing was so bad and had butter lumps inside it!! It didn’t really matter for the gingerbread men, since I didn’t use much icing on them, but for the house, it didn’t work..

I’m so tired right now, baking everyday is definitely not for me. I come home from work not early, so I have little time for workout and playing piano. On top of that, baking was really exhausting. I lack sleep, I have back aches. So tomorrow is the last day of the challenge. Good or bad? I won’t comment on that!

Also, I realized that this is my third gingerbread cookie post. A quick flashback:

2009:

2010:

Yesterday, I didn’t create any recipe, but combined two recipes and came up with something I wanted to make for ages: Lemon Choux Puffs!! Do you know my favorite dessert as a child? Chocolate profiteroles of course! That’s why I always love food made with pate a choux. And I decided so many recipes. This is yet another recipe from one of the blogs I like to follow. But instead of filling the puffs with pastry cream, I tried something different and made lemon curd instead. I came by this recipe in Claire Robinson’s show (I love that she uses only five ingredients in her recipes!). But the pate a choux recipe yields 40 puffs, and my lemon curd wasn’t enough for all of them. So, I refrigerated half of my pate a choux to use later. However, I now think that I may have increased the lemon curd amount by adding some whipped cream. You can try it that way. Next time, I’ll try it that way.

Ginger Choux Puffs with Lemon Curd

yields 20-40 puffs

For pate a choux:

- Use the recipe here. Omit sugar pearls. Add two teaspoons grated fresh ginger to the dough.

For lemon curd:

- Use the lemon curd recipe here. If you want to increase the amount and lighten up the curd, just mix the curd with 2-3 cups whipped cream.

For dusting:

-confectioners’s sugar

Directions:

When the puffs and the lemon curd is cooled, cut the puffs into half and fill them with lemon curd. Sprinkle the tops with confectioners’ sugar.

Every new year, I make the same old gingerbread cookies. This year has no difference too! The only little difference is the recipe I used. There was an old recipe I used to make every year, and I really don’t know where I found it. But this year, I decided to use the recipe from Joy of Baking and changed a bit, and the results were interesting. I got some very spicy and crispy cookies and everyone liked them!!

Since photos are enough to tell everything, I won’t talk too much this time. Enjoy!!

Gingerbread Cookies

adapted from Joy of Baking

makes “a lot” of cookies (I made 4  pans of thin cookies with this recipe)

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 3 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2/3 cup molasses
• ½ cup butter
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• ¾ teaspoon ground baking soda or baking powder
• ½ teaspoon ground cloves
• pinch of salt

For the frosting:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2-3 tablespoons milk

Directions:

Mix together sugar and butter. When you get a smooth cream, add the egg and molasses.

Add the dry ingredients to this mixture, knead the dough well and form a ball.

Let the dough rest for a couple of hours (I made this step faster by making 3 little patties and keeping them in the freezer for 30 minutes. But be careful not to forget the dough in the freezer!!!!)

Roll out the dough in preferred height. (Mines were ¼ inch-high). If the dough is too sticky, add more powdered sugar (a trick I got from Cafe Fernando)

Cut the dough with your favorite cookie cutters. By the way, heat your oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).

Bake the ginger cookies for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are brown.

For the frosting, beat the sugar and milk until it gets smooth. With a piping bag, decorate your cookies. I also used the leftover ready-to-use frosting from project proposal cookies I made (You know I don’t prefer ready-to-use stuff!!! I only used the leftovers to finish them!!!)