Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/433160
VII Christmas 2014 maltatoday, Sunday, 14 december 2014 Nothing beats a gingerbread house for bringing festive cheer into your home. Though this is not a simple or quick project, it will look great and taste good too! • 90g butter • 200g dark brown sugar • 250ml clear honey • 2 tsp finely grated lemon rind • 2 eggs beaten lightly • 750g plain flour • 150g self-raising flour • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda • 2 tsp ground ginger • 1½ tsp ground cinnamon • 1tsp ground cloves • ½tsp ground nutmeg • ½tsp ground cardamom • Assorted sweets and a silver cov- ered cake board 40cm x 30cm • Some brown paper to cut patterns • 500g white fondant moulding ic- ing Glaze • 1 tablespoon caster sugar • 2 tablespoons water • ½ teaspoon powdered gelatine The Gingerbread Method 1. Preheat oven to 180°C/gas 4 2. Combine butter, sugar and honey in a medium pan, stir over low heat until sugar dissolves, cool for 10 minutes. 3. Transfer mixture to large bowl, stir in rind, eggs and sifted dry ingredients and mix into a dough. Turn this onto a floured surface, knead gently until mixture loses its stickiness; cover, refrigerate ½ - 1 hour. 4. Now cut paper patterns for gingerbread house; cut two rectangles each 20cm x 15cm for the roof; two rectangles each 15cm x 10cm for sides; and two rec- tangles 19cm x 16cm for the front and back, and from each end piece cut a sloping roof from the centre of one side to half way down two opposite sides. 5. Roll out the dough on lightly floured surface until 1cm thick; cut shapes from dough using paper pat- terns; re-rolling dough as necessary. 6. Transfer the sections to the baking sheets. Cut the door and four windows. Bake all the sections for 10- 15 minutes until beginning to colour around the edg- es. Stand gingerbread on trays for 5 minutes, brush with glaze. Transfer glazed gingerbread to wire racks to cool. 7. Now assemble house, spread some royal icing over the cake board then putting some icing into a piping bag fitted with a writing nozzle, secure the sides and ends of the cottage to the board using more icing to glue the sections together at the corners. Spread the top edges with more icing and secure the roof sec- tions. Leave for about two hours to set. (Remember to leave the icing covered with a damp cloth). 8. Spread a little more icing over the roof sections. Roll out the fondant moulding paste to a rectangle and use to cover the roof. Use the trimmings to make a chim- ney. Pipe little icicles around the edges of the roof with the icing in the piping bag. 9. Secure windows using icing in the bag and pipe win- dow panes. Now spread the remaining icing around the house making a path with sweets and possibly a bench, logs etc. 10. Place your figurines or gingerbread men in front of the house. 11. Finally sift extra icing sugar over the whole house to resemble snowfall, and decorate edge of board with a ribbon if desired. Royal Icing Ingredients • 750g Royal Icing sugar that can be bought at good supermarkets. Follow the instructions on the packet. You can however, make your own royal ic- ing as follows: • 3 egg whites • 750g icing sugar, sifted • 3 teaspoons strained lemon juice • 1 – 1 ½ teaspoons glycerine (optional – makes the icing softer) Method 1. Put the egg whites into a clean, grease-free bowl and beat till frothy. Using a wooden spoon gradu- ally beat in half the sifted icing sugar. 2. Add the lemon juice and glycerine if using (this makes the icing softer but be careful, you don't want it too soft) and half the remaining sugar. 3. Beat until smooth and very white. Gradually beat in enough of the remaining icing sugar to give a consistency which will just stand in soft peaks. 4. Put the icing into an airtight container or cover bowl with a damp cloth till ready to use (this pre- vents it drying out). Stir again just before using. 5. Keep a little extra icing sugar for dusting the house at the end. BOV in a show of solidarity for the Malta Community Chest Fund Over the past decade, the L-Istrina BOV Piggy Bank Campaign raised over €950,000 towards the Malta Community Chest Fund. This sig- nificant sum, is the result of long hours of work by volunteers and BOV staff who get together to make this campaign possible. Eleven years since its inception, the little BOV Piggy Bank has be- come synonymous with school chil- dren during the months leading up to Christmas. Several schools even organise their own events to en- courage children to think of others who are less fortunate than them and to help them learn to be altruis- tic towards the rest of society. The weeks leading up to December are a frenetic time at BOV Centre as MCCF volunteers start collecting the 3.000 piggy banks from all the schools in Malta and Gozo as well as a growing cross-section of retail outlets. The coins are then brought over to BOV Centre for the last and crucial phase – the sorting and counting process. Very recently, this elaborate proc- ess was witnessed by The President of Malta, Her Excellency Marie- Louise Coleiro Preca and Mr Preca. Accompanied by the CEO Charles Borg, they met the volunteers who gave a first-hand demonstration of how this laborious process is under- taken. The process is a lengthy one and starts early in the year with the cleaning and checking of the piggy banks prior to their distribution to the schools, a process which is undertaken with the help of the Armed Forces of Malta who offer assistance both with the distribu- tion of the empty piggy banks and also with the collection of the coins. The final sum collected, which is then doubled by Bank of Valletta is finally presented to the L-Istrina during the live broadcast on the 26 December. The process is now in full swing with the piggy banks started being collected and coins being counted. First impressions already show that children have been very generous also this year. We hope that the mo- mentum of donations continue to flow over the last days of the cam- paign with a view to make it another success. "During this time of the year, we set up a room for the purpose of sorting and counting the coins – characterised by the incessant clinking of coins in the sorting ma- chines. In one way or another, eve- ryone in my team gets involved. It is painstaking and tedious work but it is wonderful to see the figure going up day after day. Ultimately, this all starts from small children who tap into their savings to help others, but the ripple effect is incredible," said Baldacchino happiness Gingerbread house