Monkey (Ginger)Bread

The first time I had monkey bread was during college. We were having a breakfast bash and my friend brought this hot, gooey mound of pull apart bread and I realized that I was in love. I've always gone a little weak at the knees over sticky, caramelized, breaded pastries and this stuff is no different.

Except for this isn't your ordinary monkey bread. This stuff tastes like the holidays and is packed with fragrant spices and molasses. And, it's really a lot easier than it sounds!

Monkey (Ginger)Bread [click to print]
makes 1-bundt

For bread

• 3-1/4 c. flour
• 2 T. pumpkin pie spice
• 2-1/4 tsp. active dry yeast (or 1pkg)
• 2 tsp. salt
• 1 c. whole milk
• 1/3 c. warm water
• 1/4 c. molasses
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

For coating (prepare in separate bowls)

• 3-4 T. unsalted butter, melted
• 1 c. brown sugar

1) Generously coat bundt pan with nonstick cooking spray with flour (very important to use the kind with flour!). 

2) In bowl of stand mixer, whisk together flour, spice, salt and yeast. Add milk, water, molasses and vanilla. Continue mixing with hook until dough starts climbing the hook. 

3) Turn dough onto floured surface and knead until dough forms a smooth ball. Place in oiled bowl and cover with damp cloth and set in warm place to rise until doubled in size, about 1 to 1-1/2 hours. 

4) When risen, transfer dough to floured surface and gently punch down and shape into 8" square. Use a pizza cutter to dough into 64 pieces. Coat each ball in melted butter, then brown sugar and start piling into bundt, trying to distribute them somewhat evenly. 

5) Cover bundt with damp towel and place in warm area to rise about 1 hour; the dough balls should be puffy and about 1" below top edge of bundt pan. 

6) Preheat oven to 350 F. Bake 30-35 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Remove from oven and allow to cool in pan no more than 5 minutes. Turn out onto plate and allow to cool another 10 minutes before serving. 

Source: Adapted from Food 52

Pumpkin Gingerbread

Every Christmas, my mom and I (and sometimes my sister) would bake and bake and bake. We'd scoop and cut and slice probably hundreds of cookies and sweet breads, and, thanks to our benevolent taste testers who would die before we delivered any less-than-perfect treats to our neighbors, we ended the whole project with just barely enough to go around. My mom would sweetly scoot us kids out the door, reminding us to smile and sing loud enough for our old neighbors to hear, and off we went! My favorite house was right next door, at Reverend Fred Donaldson, or "The Rev" as his license plate said. He was a giant of a man, was missing part of one finger on his left hand and always sang "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" right back to us in his booming choir voice.

I know it's a little past Christmas and pumpkin season now, but this has gotta be one of my absolute favorite sweet breads. There's nothing like the smell of pumpkin and ginger baking in a hot oven to warm up your home and singing voice!

Pumpkin Gingerbread [click to print]
Makes 1 loaf

1 c sugar
1/2 butter, melted
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
1/4 c molasses
1 c. pumpkin puree
1-3/4 c. flour
2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice (OR 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ginger, 1/2 tsp nutmeg)
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda

Whisk together dry ingredients and set aside. Combine sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla; mix until smooth. Add molasses and pumpkin; mix until blended. Add dry ingredients in about 3 additions, scraping, scraping sides of bowl as needed. Mix until blended.

Coat loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray. Pour batter into pan and bake at 350 for 55-65 minutes. Reduce heat by 25 degrees if using glass loaf pan.

Source: Adapted from AllRecipes

Gingerbread House Cookies

Every year near the holidays, my elementary school would host a gingerbread house decorating night in the cafeteria. My mom and all the PTO ladies would hand out baggies of royal icing and we'd set out our extensive array of colorful candies and get to work. My siblings and I were ambitious little artists/mess-makers so our graham cracker mansions were constructed with only royal icing for glue, none of that hot glue stuff that our friends Kate and Kelsey tried to pull! However, their house was always standing at the end of the evening and ours undoubtedly had a few collapsed roofs, fallen turrets and tears.

Hard at work, squeezing that bag!

The only sad thing about graham cracker houses is that they don't taste as good as real gingerbread and they get stale just sitting around on the mantel for weeks on end. I would much rather have something I can sink my teeth into, without the added sugar rush and expense of mountains of candy decorations.

So when I heard that my brother and his cute family were coming for a visit this Christmas, I just had to make these cookies for my nieces to decorate! They are quite the budding artists, after all. Not only do these cookies taste delicious, but they don't take too long to prepare and they are a great project for kids and (a little) less messy than your traditional graham cracker house. We put all the white icing in plastic squeeze bottles and it was much easier for little hands to manage. If we had another bottle we would have put the red in one, too, so plan ahead a little better than me!

This cookie artwork was eaten by Santa!

Store these cookies, undecorated or extravagant, in an airtight container and they'll stay nice and soft for several days...if they last that long!

And a little help from cousin Sarah!

Gingerbread House Cookies [click to print]
Makes about 4 dozen cookies

3/4 c. butter, softened
1 c. sugar
1 c. molasses
1/4 c. sour cream
1 egg
4 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. cloves
2 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. nutmeg

Whisk together dry ingredients and set aside. Cream together butter and sugar. Add molasses, sour cream and egg; beat until well blended. Gradually add dry ingredients in about 3 additions. Cover and chill at least 1 hour.

Roll out dough between two sheets of wax paper. Use a cookie cutter to cut out house shapes or create your own. I made mine out of a piece of wax paper and used a pizza cutter, smoothing out any cutter nicks with my finger. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper. Place cookies 2 inches apart. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes. Allow to cool on wire racks.

Source: Adapted from Meet the Dubiens

Royal Icing [click to print]
2 egg whites, large
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. brown food coloring
3 c. powdered sugar

Beat egg whites, vanilla and food coloring until frothy. Add powdered sugar and continue beating on low until smooth. The mixture should be kind of thick, but pipeable, at this point. Scoop about 1/3 of the icing into a squeeze bottle or piping bag and set aside. Add water to remaining icing, about 1/2 tsp. at a time, until it is flooding consistency. If you make it too thin, just mix in a little more powdered sugar. Pour icing in another squeeze bottle (a piping bag will be much trickier, but still possible, for this consistency) and set aside.

Using the thicker icing, outline each house shape and allow to harden about 10 minutes. Using the thinner icing, flood each shape to fill in the outlines and allow to harden a few hours. Be careful not to get any water on them as they harden or they'll have lighter colored spots.

Once the cookies are well set, let your decorators go to work!

Source: Adapted from Joy of Cooking