Gingerbread Houses and 15th Birthdays

Once again, in keeping with our yearly tradition, we celebrated my middle "Sprout"s birthday with a delightfully messy, sugar-filled annual Gingerbread House-making Birthday party.


















Teen girls and lots of sugar. It gets crazier every year.

But every year the girls are older, they can do more of the prep work themselves, clean up more of their own mess, and their creations get prettier and more lavish.

Everyone loves it. I have Moms calling in September asking if we're making houses again this year.

I always have the house "parts" baked and cooled ahead of time, and after many years of doing this, we have it down to a science.

This year, however, I used the gingerbread recipe from Vegan Dad's blog, as I haven't really liked the texture of the other vegan gingerbread recipes I've used.

I'm not much of a recipe follower, which is why you'll rarely see links to other recipes here; there's millions of better recipes than mine, I just stubbornly prefer to muddle through until I've concocted my own creation (or disaster!).

However, with my daughter's time-honored Gingerbread party I didn't want to experiment. And happily, (as you'll see) the gingerbread turned out great.
(Here are some good cut-out-and-assembly instructions, we use slightly smaller measurements since we're making 6 houses...That equals a LOT of dough!

We DO use commercial Royal Icing however, just to "cement" the house parts together. Yes it has egg-whites. But any and all attempts I have made at decent vegan royal icing have ended up in collapsed houses that look somewhat like a Hurricane Katrina re-creation... Not the effect you're going for at a Holiday party!

However, once the houses are assembled and "set", we mix up some fairly decent vegan frosting for the final (and fun, messy, sticky, icky, sugar-coated) step of decorating...

And no, I am sure some of the candy isn't vegan. Bring on the vegan Police.

Here is my approximate icing recipe (and <-- here is what happens when big sisters get bored with Gingerbread houses); play with it according to the humidity in your kitchen and how much liquid your powdered sugar absorbs.

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"Almost" Royal Icing

7 Tablespoons water

4 Tablespoon Ener-G egg replacer (don't use another brand)

7 cups of powdered sugar (you can make non-bone-char powdered sugar with beet sugar and cornstarch in a coffee grinder, Whole Foods sells vegan powdered sugar too)

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

Mix dr ingredients together. Add to water. I don't usually add all the powdered sugar/cream of tarter, just keep mixing it in until the right consistency. It still takes longer to set up than royal icing

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And just in case you're thinking this is a worthless post with nothing but frosting, here are the amazing vegan chocolate-chip muffins that big sister Jessika made for everyone for breakfast. (She made the birthday cake too! )

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Pretty generous of her since she had to put up with a housefull of "younger" girls all night!

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Chocolate-Chip-Banana Muffins

3 very ripe bananas
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 cup sugar
2 cups sifted whole wheat pastry flour (or white, or whatever)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips, chopped to make them a bit smaller, and tossed with a bit of cornstarch so they don't "sink" in the batter

Pre-heat oven to 360 degrees.
In a large bowl, mash the bananas with a fork till mushy.

Add the oil and sugar and mix together until creamy.
In a separate bowl combine the dry stuff.

Combine with the banana mixture, stirring gently just to combine.
Grease (WELL!) or line a muffin pan, and fill each muffin about 2/3 full with batter. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

Here's hoping your Holidays are sweet and memorable.

7 Random Things about Memememe me me me...

So, Yeah, like everyone else in blogger-land, I have been tagged. By four or five of you lovely people.

And by now I'm probably the last blogger participating, because I usually don't do these things so well; so I assume you all know the rules, which I've already broken, so I'll skip those...

7 Random Things About Me

1.) I recently got my hair cut. Short. For me anyway.

This is the shortest it's been since high-school and I have to admit, I feel just a bit naked.

2.) I am adopted.

With the support of my adoptive parents (who will always be my "real" parents) I searched for my birth family about 9 years ago, found them, and now have a wonderful relationship with my biological father, aunties, uncles, grandparents, cousins, etc.... Long, warm-fuzzy, very Oprah-worthy story.

3.) I am the oldest of six girls, we were all raised vegetarian by slightly crunchy, slightly hippie, ahead-of-their-time, health conscious parents (my Dad's a Medical Doctor, and while in school, did some research that led him to the conclusion that eating meat was way unhealthy. He determined this was something HIS family would never do) and all six of us girls are still vegetarian. I'm the only vegan, go figure!

4.) I hate frogs. In a crazy-insane-panicky-terror sort of way. Hate them so very much that I've refused to leave my house when one took up residence on the front step. A teeeny, tiny tree frog! I would seriously have to be committed to a mental institution if one hopped on me. Seriously, I think that's my biggest fear. And yes, I realize how stupid it is. Spiders? Snakes? I have no problem with them. Just frogs. Hate them so much I'm not posting a picture.

5.) I use our local food bank on an occasional basis. I am not proud of it, in fact it's a very emotional thing for me. I am the Queen of Frugal but sometimes my paycheck just doesn't make ends meet. I do "pay back" during the summer when I have extra produce in my garden, and my kids and I have been regular volunteers for years - the staff know us well and will often watch out for vegan-friendly items that come in. (Oddly enough, sometimes the food-bank's clients won't even take tofu or tempeh when it's offered - and it ends up being a hard item to get rid of. Who knew?)

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6.) I am totally crazy about my kids. Love, love, love them. But you knew that already. Being a Mom defines who I am. My kids are my life. No one said these had to be random things you didn't previously know about me.

7.) I am very entertained by Paula Deen, Alton Brown, Ace of Cakes and in fact, most of Food Network. It's cheap entertainment. And I mentally veganize everything they cook (OK, sometimes it's a real stretch) but I actually learn something from many of the shows I watch, and if not, at least I'm not bored!

8.) I dislike dogs.

Almost all dogs except ours. And my sister's doberman. And my cousin's poodle. Otherwise, I don't like dogs.

I do not want to say hi to every mutt at the dog park and I do not want to hold your cute, fuzzy Poopsie and I do not want to be knocked over by a giant tail-wagging, tongue-slurping hairy beast that you insist is friendly. I just am not a dog person, unless it's my dog.

Ooops, that was eight. Sorry for the rambling. But you asked for random.

Have a GREAT week!

Kid-Friendly Mini-Pizzas

A windy day in March, (see all the downed tree branches in \/ picture below). My oldest is babysitting two little guys here at the house. I'm not sure how much work it is for her, since they happen to be good friends with my Little Sprout and they've been outside all morning....

I told her she had to come up with lunch that all the little munchkins would eat (and like) and she rummaged around my almost empty cupboards and put together these cute mini-pizzas; They have whole wheat English Muffins, spaghetti sauce, Tofutti "mozerella" slices, olives, canned mushrooms (blechh - I had no idea I had a can of those, they look like snails to me! Oh well, the kiddos seemsed to like them!) some mock-chicken stuff and red peppers. All those veggies and weird things and the little guys ate 'em just fine!

I was surprised the 'Tofutti' soy cheese (sorta) melted in the oven - even if it did take a while!!

Not sure I need an exact recipe, but thought I'd post anyway since I was proud of her creativity, and the kids are so dang cute!

Vegan Christmas Baking: GINGERBREAD!

VEGAN GINGERBREAD!

My daughter celebrates her birthday at the end of November every year with a "Gingerbread-House Making Party" for several of her (not so little anymore) friends. It's always a HUGE hit and the girls spend hours making beautifully (?) decorated little houses.

I realize some of the candies you'll see pictured are NOT vegan but the gingerbread is, and actually VERY tasty. Besides making the sheets of gingerbread for the houses, I always make plenty extra, just to be baked into cookies that we eat...

GINGERBREAD COOKIES

1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup plain soymilk
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour or all-purpose flour (or a mix of both)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
spice blend:
1/2 teaspoon each ground nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

Directions:
In a large bowl beat together oil and sugar for about 3 minutes. Add molasses and soymilk. The molasses and soymilk won't really blend with the oil but that's ok.

In a seperate bowl, sift together all the other ingredients.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet in batches. MIx together with a firm spoon or spatula until well combined. You should have a pretty stiff dough. Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for an hour or up to 3 days in advance. (If you chill longer than an hour you may want to let it sit for 10 minutes to loosen up a bit before proceeding).

Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease your cookie sheets.

On a floured surface roll you dough out to a little less than 1/4 inch thick. You can do this in 2 batches if you don't have the space. Cut out your shapes with your cookie cutters and gently place on cookie sheets (if you are using them to decorate with remember to cut a hole with a straw or something before baking).

Bake for 8 minutes.Remove from oven and let them cool for 2 minutes on the baking sheet then move to a cooling rack. Wait until they are completely cool before icing.

If baking "walls" for a gingerbread house, make cookies 1/2 inch thick and bake at 300 F until very firm - about 15 minutes or longer. Then let cook on a rack overnight.