Christmas Gingerbread House

The Art.

    Merry Christmas, everybody! One of my favorite ways to celebrate the season is to make beautiful gingerbread houses with my family. It's a great opportunity to do something creative to decorate your home...and then eat it. It's also an activity that everyone can enjoy. My husband even joined in this year and make a garage full of cookie sports cars. As you can see, my house is more traditional and uses primarily piped icing technique instead of candy decorations. But, if peppermints and jelly beans are your thing, go ahead and eat your heart out. Two elements that I incorporated this year to take my gingerbread house to the next level were windows made of gelatin sheets, and lighting up the interior with a battery-operated LED light for a warm glow. Putting Christmas trees inside the house also gave the interior a nice three-dimensional effect. There are many directions you can take when decorating your gingerbread house, so I encourage everyone to get creative and have fun!

The Science.

    The best way to ensure you have a beautiful gingerbread house is to break out a skill I haven't used since high school: geometry. I know, try not to panic. As long as you have a pad of graph paper and follow these basic rules, you will be fine. You will use the graph paper to cut out stencils to trace your gingerbread pieces. First, make sure the vertical walls of your house are all the same height. You can use the same stencil for the front and back, and then another for both sides of your house. If you're making a traditional four-sided house with a gabled roof, then you need to make sure your rectangular roof pieces are at least 1/2 inch longer on each side than you think they should be. This is because the seams between the supporting walls will take up about 1/4 inch, and the same goes for the seam at the top of the roof. If you are planning on filling your house with elements (like my LED light and trees), it helps to make a large hole on the back that you can fit your hand inside.

  I also have another tip for keeping your windows square. When you cut the windows into the dough, don't remove the pieces, but rather leave them in while baking. Then, right after you take the cookies out of the oven, use a sharp knife to gently pop the windows out. This prevents the dough from puffing up and spreading into the negative space of the windows. If you follow these suggestions, you will end up with a symmetrical, clean-cut base for all your whimsical decorating!

The Recipe.

    For this gingerbread house, I used my Gingerbread Cookie recipe found here. One batch of dough is enough for two houses approximately 8 inches high. You will also need a batch of royal icing, recipe found here. The icing you use to glue your house together should be about the consistency of toothpaste, so keep adding powdered sugar until it's the correct consistency. 

    If you are using gelatin sheets for windows, be sure to glue them on before you assemble the walls. I find the best way to assemble the house is to fill a piping bag with the icing and pipe it onto the gingerbread with a wide round tip, then hold the pieces together for about 1 minute until they are set. Now that the house is constructed, you're ready for the fun part!

    This house has many little details that add dimension. I made evergreen ivy trailing up the walls with royal icing that I dyed green and piped with a small leaf tip. I added icicles along the gables using a small round tip, and made the windows look frosty by filling the windowsills with white icing and adding sparkle sugar. 

   The Christmas trees were made by covering sugar cones with green icing using a star tip and finishing with Wilton Rainbow Star Medley sprinkles. Finally, a bright red door with a crumbled Oreo path completed the house.

    We had a lot of fun making our houses, and I hope you will, too! They look great displayed on the table under a glass cake dome, but they also taste great if you decide to gobble them up. Either way, have a happy holiday!

Banana Split Cake

The Art.

    One of the best things about summer vacation is enjoying a huge banana split in the sunshine. In the name of summertime, I wanted to capture the essence of the banana split in a cake. So, I created this pretty treat! It has everything: three layers of cake representing the vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate scoops of ice cream, caramelized bananas, chocolate ganache, even cherries and rainbow sprinkles. The great thing about this recipe is it makes cupcakes as well, so you can feed quite a crowd from just one banana split.

The Science.

    The tricky part for this cake was to incorporate the strawberry and banana flavors without compromising the texture of the cake itself. I spent a lot of time a few years back developing the perfect white cake recipe, and I knew that if I added fruit to it I would have to go through all kinds of testing again to compensate for the added moisture. I avoided this problem by instead putting the strawberry flavor in the icing and only dying one of the cake layers pink. Then, I caramelized the bananas to prevent them from becoming a gross, brown mess (as sliced bananas are wont to do) and used them as the filling between the cake layers. This way, I still had all the required flavors in the cake, without investing too much in the old R&D. One suggestion I do have is dividing your baking up over a couple days. I made the chocolate cake and cupcakes the first day, then finished everything else on the second day. Another good idea is to ensure the maraschino cherries are thoroughly rinsed and drained on paper towels so they don't drip pink goo all over your icing.

The Recipe.

Chocolate cake:
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup boiling water 
1 cup dutch cocoa
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla 

    Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a 6x3-inch round baking pan with baking spray, and line with parchment paper. Also prepare a standard cupcake tin with cupcake liners. In a medium bowl, combine sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a small bowl, dissolve cocoa in boiling water to allow it to "bloom." In a large bowl, beat together egg, milk, oil, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stir in bloomed cocoa. Fill cake pan and cupcake tin 2/3 of the way, and bake on center rack for 20 minutes. Cool cake in pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack to cool completely. Once cool, peel off the parchment paper.

White cake:
6 egg whites, divided
1 1/2 cups sugar, divided
2 1/4 cups cake flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup salted butter 
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/3 cup buttermilk

    Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat 2 6x3-inch round pans with baking spray and line with parchment paper. Prepare a standard cupcake tin with liners. In a medium bowl, beat three egg whites on medium speed until frothy. Gradually beat in 1/2 cup sugar and continue to beat until soft peaks form. Set aside. Sift together flour and baking powder in another bowl. In a large bowl, beat together remaining cup sugar, butter, remaining egg whites, and vanilla. Alternately add one third of the flour mixture and buttermilk, beating between each addition just until combined. Fold in beaten egg whites with a spatula. Divide batter in half, and tint one batch pink (I used Wilton Icing Colors Pink). Pour each batter into a pan until 2/3 full and smooth the tops with a spatula. Fill the cupcake tins until 2/3 full as well. Bake on center rack for 20 minutes, or until tester comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan, then invert onto wire racks to cool completely and remove parchment paper.

Strawberry buttercream:
2 cups (1lb) salted butter, room temperature
1/3 cup seedless strawberry jam (e.g. Hero Strawberry Fruit spread)
5-7 cups powdered sugar

    In large bowl, beat together butter and jam on medium speed until fluffy. Beat in powdered sugar, one cup at a time. Add sugar until icing makes stiff, jagged peaks. If icing tastes too sugary or grainy, add a couple tablespoons of milk. 

Caramelized Bananas:
2 ripe bananas, diced
2 tablespoons salted butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar

    Melt butter in a frying pan on medium heat. Add bananas and cook until light brown on both sides. Add brown sugar and stir bananas to coat, continuing to cook until caramelized, about 3 minutes.

Dark chocolate ganache:
4oz 60% cacao bar chocolate (e.g. Ghiradelli baking bar)
1/4 cup 40% heavy whipping cream

    Break up chocolate into bits and place in a small microwave safe bowl. Add cream and microwave in two 30-second intervals, stirring between. Be careful not to overheat, or the chocolate will seize up and become hardened. Continue to stir until the chocolate completely melts and becomes glossy. Cool slightly before dripping onto the cake.

Assembly:

Gather these additional supplies:
2 jars maraschino cherries with stems, rinsed and drained on paper towels
rainbow sprinkles
1M piping tip and piping bag

    Place the chocolate cake layer on a cardboard cake circle or rotating cake stand and cover with a thin layer of icing and half of the bananas. Place the pink cake on top, covering with icing and the remaining bananas, then top it off with the white cake layer. Spread a thin coat of "dirty" icing all over the cake before placing it in the freezer to cool (we'll make it look pretty later). Meanwhile, pipe icing on the cupcakes with a 1M star tip (technique here). Top with cherries and sprinkles.

    Pull the cake out of the freezer and cover with icing using an offset spatula. For a very smooth finish, use an icing smoother and rotating cake stand. Be sure to get the top of the cake very level. Spoon the slightly warm ganache on top, using the technique described in my Candyland Drip Cake recipe. For the finishing touches, pipe 6 small 1M swirls on top of the cake, top with cherries, and (judiciously) add some rainbow sprinkles. 

    Display this show-stopping cake and cupcakes as your centerpiece at your party or barbeque, with a sliver cut out so everyone can appreciate the layers. Adding some confetti to the table also adds some festivity and ties in the rainbow sprinkle theme. Leftover cake can be stored in the refrigerator for up to four days.

Donkey Piñata Cake

The Art.

    Happy Cinco de Mayo! I hope you all had plenty of tacos and tequila. To celebrate here on Brainy Buns, this is the most piñata-y cake I could make. Not only does my creation look like an adorable donkey piñata on the outside, but it is also filled with delicious candy that spills out when the cake is cut. But it doesn't stop there! Brightly colored cake layers and churro icing are also found inside. This little donkey is ready to party, right down to his little tail!

The Science.

    I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what flavors to incorporate into this cake. There are so many delicious Mexican flavors to choose from, and for a brief moment I even considered filling the cake with prickly pear jam. In the end, I settled on churros because they're the one Mexican sweet I can never get enough of. In order to get the malty, cinnamon flavor of churros into my cake, I crushed up Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal and mixed it into the icing before spreading it between the cake layers. This gave the icing a convincing churro flavor, and also a wonderful crunch! Of course after making this I discovered that General Mills actually sells a churro cereal, so if you would like to try putting that in your icing instead, go for it!

The Recipe.

Yellow Cake:

3 1/3 cups cake flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup salted butter

2 1/4 cups sugar

6 eggs

3 teaspoons vanilla

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

    Preheat oven to 350^oF. Spray four 6inch x 3inch cake pans with baking spray and line with parchment paper. In a medium bowl, comine flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat butter in large bowl on medium-high until fluffy, then gradually beat in sugar. Beat eggs in, one at a time. Stir vanilla into buttermilk. Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk to butter/sugar/egg mixture while beating on low speed.  Beat an additional 30 seconds.

    Divide the batter equally into four bowls and dye blue, orange, pink, and purple with food coloring.  Pour batter into pans and lift and drop the pans on the counter a couple times to eliminate bubbles in the batter. Bake on center rack for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean. Cool the cakes for 10 minutes, then turn onto a cooling rack and remove the parchment paper to cool completely

Buttercream icing:

2 cups salted butter, room temperature

6-8 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, crushed

    In a large bowl, beat butter on medium speed until fluffy. Beat in vanilla. Gradually beat in powdered sugar, until icing becomes thick enough for piping. I look for stiff, jagged peaks as my indicator. Adding the sugar in increments results in better incorporation into the butter, so you can use less sugar for the same consistency. If the frosting tastes too sweet and feels grainy, add a couple tablespoons of milk.

    Divide icing into five bowls. Tint four bowls blue, pink, purple and yellow with gel icing colors. (It will take A LOT of dye, be patient.) Stir the cereal into the white icing, which you will use between the cake layers.

Assembly:

Gather together these additional supplies:

Candies

Sugar cones

Wilton fondant: pink, black, and white

    Once cakes have cooled, use a 1.5-inch round cookie cutter to cut the center out of three of the cake layers. (Do not cut a hole in the top layer.) Stack the bottom three layers, spreading the churro icing between as you stack them. Fill the hole in the center with whatever candies you like. I used pretzel M&Ms because I like the shape and colors, and the crunch adds nice texture. Place the final cake layer on top.

    To ice the cake, I used a rose petal tip #104 to make the multicolored ruffles. This will go much faster if you have four #104 tips, but you can switch between colors with one tip if you don't. I highly recommend using a rotating cake stand for this, as well. Rotate the cake slowly and move the tip toward and away from the surface of the cake as you pipe to make the ruffle pattern. I found that three rows of ruffles for each color looked just right. It also helps to start and end rows on the back of the cake, so those seams can be covered up by the tail. To make the ears, take two sugar cones and place them upside down on top of the cake, and cover them with icing ruffles.

    To make the donkey's cute little face, knead together some of the black and white fondant to make gray. Roll out the gray fondant with a rolling pin, using a sprinkling of powdered sugar to prevent sticking. Cut out an oval to make the snout, and then roll two U-shaped nostrils of the black fondant. Stick the nostrils onto the snout with a small amount of water and let them set together a few minutes before gently pressing the snout onto the front of the cake. For the eyes, cut out two black circles of rolled fondant and four smaller white circles of fondant. Affix them together with water to create shiny anime eyes before gently pressing them onto the cake above the snout. You can make the tail by rolling a rope of black fondant with your hands, and then snipping and shaping the end to look like hairs. Attach the tail with a couple of toothpicks. The toothpicks will be covered up by the bow, which you can assemble from strips of pink rolled fondant. 

    Cutting this cake is all part of the ceremony! It's great to hear your guests gasp as the piñata candy spills out. On the off chance that you have cake left over, you can store it in the fridge for a few days.