Some lovely family friends donated my boyfriend and I a microwave in our hour of need, so we made them some cookies to say thank you!
Gingerbread is awesome, and super easy to cut into shapes, so I opted for that.
The recipe for my gingerbread can be found here.
The method for chocolate melting/dipping can be found here.
Got my dipping swirl out again yesterday and tried it out on some kettle corn. Yes, it’s amazing. Glad you asked.
Anyway, I suppose I ought to put some semblance of a recipe on here, so:
6oz (170g) of cooking chocolate
1T kremelta (vegetable shortening)
Melt In 30 second intervals in the microwave at 50% power, stirring in between. Once the mixture is fully melted, dip your [pre-popped] popcorn in it. Make sure you drain each piece well, or you’ll wind up with big chocolate puddles. Leave to cool on baking paper (chuck it in the fridge if it’s just not going fast enough for you).
You will also probably note some ginormous chocolate stars in there. Those are chocolate covered ginger stars, and they’re gorgeous. Just use the gingerbread recipe from last post, bake for 10 minutes, cool and dip. They are so extremely yummy! I may do a whole post in their honour sometime. For now, they were just something to do with leftover gingerbread dough.
Enjoy!
My boyfriend bought me some cookie cutters last week that are essentially gingerbread men doing ninja poses. Yeah, I know. Awesome.
Anyway, today I decided we’d make some, so we threw together my friend Jane’s recipe for gingerbread (included below). Then we dipped them in chocolate, because I was also making chocolate popcorn (pictures of that later).
Gingerbread dough!
Cutting out the ninjas.
Fresh out of the oven … they did swell up a little bit.
Methods of decorating: the dip, and the flick.
The finished product!
Recipe:
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup golden syrup
1/2 cup butter (also known as ~112g)
2 cups plain flour
2T ground ginger
1/2 tsp baking soda
Melt the first three ingredients in a pot on the stove. Probably best to bring this to the boil so the sugar melts. Then, remove from the heat and add the second three ingredients. Stir, and then leave to cool for a while.
Once cool, roll out into a sheet about 1cm thick. Rolling it out on baking paper is recommended. Cut out whatever shapes you want to make and put them on a lined baking tray. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 10-15 minutes, depending on your oven. The colour changes when they’re done.
Then, once cool, feel free to ice/dip in chocolate/eat. Awesome.
I bought a utensil in the boxing day sales called a dipping swirl. It’s basically a fancy spoon that is designed to enhance drainage when you’re dipping things in chocolate. I really enjoy that I have use for such a thing.
Anyway, tonight I decided we’d do a few dippings, and we’ve got marshmallows (the regular shaped things), pieces of pineapple (the flattish looking things) and toasted nuts – you guessed it, walnuts and almonds.
I heated 6oz of milk chocolate in the microwave with 1T of kremelta (vegetable shortening) until it melted. I used 50% power and heated it for 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between. This is important as the chocolate melts from the inside out, and so keeps its shape and looks unmelted.
6oz is 170g. I just used my scales gram to ounce converter and the recipe stated ounces. I believe it took about 2 minutes in the microwave to be fully melted. When it gets near being properly melted, drop your times to 10 or 20 seconds.
Then I just threw things into it, rolled them until covered, and took them out with my dipping swirl to lay on a lined baking tray. They set without refrigeration, but I usually put them in the fridge because I feel like they’re somehow firmer. They’re probably not.
Left: my dipping swirl. Effectively a fancy spoon. You could use a fork. Or anything that can drain, really.
Right: chocolates setting on baking paper. Yum!
