Gingerbread Cuffins with Cream Cheese Icing

Do you ever get to that stage where you know you've had a recipe bookmarked for ages, but its not until you finally get around to making it that you see how embarrassingly long it has been there for? I realised when I finally got around to purchasing all of the ingredients yesterday that Sian published this recipe in December 2009. Gracious me. I had been planning to make these yesterday, but then my friend who I haven't seen in almost a year (disgraceful!) came over with cupcakes and we had a grand old time which meant I needed to devote the rest of my afternoon to uni work. So instead when I woke up at 8 this morning after having a terrible sleep, I made these for breakfast. Also I can highly recommend the uncooked mixture as one of the more delicious things I have eaten.

Sorry, family members who think I am responsible. It gave me the boost I need to write more of my essay! That counts as responsibility!

I'm still not sure whether to call them cupcakes or muffins... I feel like cupcakes are terribly dainty and adorable and celebratory, and the spices in these make me want to call them muffins. I think the fact that it is cream cheese icing, which must be healthy because its used on carrot cake and that is a cake with CARROTS in it so +50 health points, has swayed me to the "muffin" side. Even though I know what is in cream cheese icing now and its essentially butter icing with cream cheese. Cupcake muffins. Cuffins.

GINGERBREAD CUFFINS WITH CREAM CHEESE ICING

Makes 10 large, muffin-sized serves

Total time commitment: About 40 minutes, including 20 minutes cooking time

Recipe from Monster Girl Writes

1/2 cup SR flour

1/2 cup plain flour

1/4 tsp bicarb soda

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

100g butter, softened

1/4 cup milk

2 tbsp golden syrup

Preheat oven to 170C. Combine dry ingredients, then add wet ingredients and mix together. Spoon into cupcake liners and bake until springy and golden.

While cooking, combine the following:

30g butter

50g cream cheese

2/3 cup icing sugar

When the cupcakes are done, take them out of the oven and let them cool for 5 minutes before icing them. Lovely!

Gingerbread Men

I don't understand what its like to have a small family or not know how to act around small people. On my mum's side of the family, I'm one of thirteen cousins, and one of the 'old bunch' (to be fair, if you categorize us that way, the 'middle bunch' is only one cousin who's a couple of years younger than I am and a couple of years older than the start of the 'young bunch'; the system is inherently flawed). I digress - the main point is, I love having a gigantic family. And I'm learning to love babysitting as well :P My youngest cousins are six and three, and very energetic (which is my main qualm about babysitting, because I am lazy). I actually invented a game called Tickle Monster which they love, where the Tickle Monster (me) has to sit on the couch and CAN'T GET OFF THE COUCH (this is a very important rule), and everyone else (ie the boys, who have energy) has to run around and try not to get caught by the tickle monster. In my defence, I also play soccer and dodgeball and chasey and the like.

The other day, though, knowing it was going to be stinking hot (and wanting to mold them into the next Junior Masterchefs), I prepared for babysitting by bringing stuff to make gingerbread men. I was going to make chocolate spiders with them (easy and delicious), but I did that last time, and its CHRISTMAS. Not that I think we've ever made gingerbread men as an exclusively Christmas food, I think I've probably made them twice before and never at Christmas, but it seems to be the done thing. I also got to teach Mr Six about fractions (possibly above his age level, but he's ridiculously intelligent, and it makes sense when you can look at how many 1/2 cup or 1/3 cups go into 1 cup). And it kept them occupied, which is the main thing, its nice to come home and be able to say that you had a great day babysitting!

Side notes: I did get their mother's permission before I put these photos up, and they washed their hands first so Mr Six flattening the brown sugar with his hands isn't quite as concerning as it could be. And I don't know why Mr Three is wearing a diamond bracelet.

GINGERBREAD


125g butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup golden syrup
1 egg
2 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tbsp ground ginger
1/2 tbsp bicarb soda

1. Line two trays with baking paper

2. Mix the butter, sugar, golden syrup and egg until combined.

3. Add the flour, ginger and bicarb soda and mix with a wooden spoon.

4. Lightly flour a chopping board (or clean bench space), turn out the gingerbread mix onto the board and knead until smooth.

5. Roll to desired thickness and cut out shapes to put on the baking tray. We used letters, numbers and animals.