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I'm spending my holidays back in England's Lake District, where snow is falling, snow on snow, and my days are spent walking in the hills or reading by the fire. I'm a pampered guest, so I'm not really cooking, but I'm feasting on things like Grasmere gingerbread and Cartmel sticky toffee pudding.
Thank you so much for reading O Pistachio this year (I can't believe it's nearly time for the one year anniversary!). And while I think of it, my very first post, early in 2009, was these lovely bread wreaths: they were perfect on our Christmas table.
I hope your holidays are full of peace, joy, and delicious baked goods.
Here are some photos of all the loveliness I'm enjoying.
Frosting is a foreign term to me - usually I'd say icing. But when it has cream cheese in it, I feel like it just has to be called frosting. I made this to go with gingerbread cupcakes, but I can imagine it just as happily on carrot cake, or chocolate cake, or basically any other kind of cake. Those cupcakes are delicious enough not to be a mere vehicle for frosting, but you'd want to make sure whatever you paired this stuff with could stand up to its impact. Otherwise you may just find yourself eating it with a spoon (not that there's a damn thing wrong with that).
And the nice thing is that it's the Joy of Cooking recipe. I tried it because of Slashfood, which calls it "the last cream cheese frosting recipe you'll ever need".
Cream Cheese Frosting
From The Joy of Cooking
8 oz cold cream cheese*
5 tbsp softened butter
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups powdered (confectioner's/icing) sugar, sifted after measuring, plus extra to taste
Beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla together with an electric mixer until smooth and combined. Gradually add 2 cups powdered (icing) sugar, and then add more sifted powdered (icing) sugar until it reaches a sweetness you like.
* Cold cream cheese really does make a difference, but it shouldn't be super-hard - just straight out of the fridge.
Please make these: they're amazingly good. They're warm with ginger and spice, soft, and they're great as tiny little cakes, which is how I made them. The cream cheese frosting is so phenomenal that I'm going to give it its own post, just so I can find it easily in the future. I took them to a party and let people ice their own cakes; the kids liked them plain, the grown-ups were all over the frosting. One of my friends took the leftover frosting home and "ate it like a pudding".
The original Martha Stewart recipe uses unsulphured molasses, which I don't love; I substituted golden syrup, which still gives a fantastically gingerbready flavour. I know golden syrup is less common in the US, but I've found it for sale in both the groceries stores near me in Austin.
Gingerbread Cupcakes
adapted from Martha Stewart
2 tsp baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)
2 1/2 cups all purpose (plain) flour
2 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
8 tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 cup golden syrup
2 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten
Heat oven to 350°F / 175°C. Line muffin tins (mini or otherwise) with paper baking cups, and set aside. In a small saucepan, bring 1 cup water to a boil. In a bowl, combine boiling water and baking soda; set aside. In a large bowl, sift together flour, ground spices, salt, and baking powder; set aside.
In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter until light. Beat in the brown sugar until fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Beat in the golden syrup, baking-soda mixture, and flour mixture. Beat in the eggs.
Fill the cupcake papers three-quarters full. Bake cupcakes until a toothpick inserted in the center of them comes out clean, about 25 minutes for ordinarily-sized cupcakes, or 15-20 minutes for mini cupcakes. Let cupcakes cool a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.
