Episode 7: Minchin Ninjabread, Spitzbub'n & Vanille Kipferln

Merry annual end of year happy celebration time! This episode, I have a very special guest: my wife, Tanja, (@TanjerineOrange on Twitter) has volunteered two of her grandmother's Christmas biscuit recipes and her time (she even gets her own font in the video).

Edit, again: restored, with original tunes! No love for the tablet or mobile, though. Sorry. :(

Notes

The Gingerbread recipe is from Muppy's (post here), and was originally a Nigella Lawson "Guinness Gingerbread", but as I don't really like Guinness all that much, I substituted a bottle of Coopers Best Extra Stout. So instead of Irish Ginger, I made Australian Ginger. Also I wanted to used my ninjabread cookie cutters. So what does one think of when one thinks of an Australian Ginger Ninja? Why Tim Minchin, of course:

Both these were taken via iPhone in bad lighting, so forgive me. While Mr. Minchin is in the comedy section of the music shop, he has the power to make me bawl like a small child with a skinned knee (see "Rock N Roll Nerd", "Not Perfect" and "White Wine In The Sun" for tear-causing).

The gingerbread itself is more like a cake than the thin, hard, storebought stuff and goes great with some warm custard and a cup of coffee.

Music Notes

Prejudice - Tim Minchin, from "Ready For This", 2009

The twist that arrives two minutes and thirty seconds into this song is nothing short of brilliant, but it's the funky piano breakdown and Tim's usual witty wordplay that keeps me coming back. Incidently, I had never seen someone mocked or bullied for having freckles or red hair until I came to Australia. Huh.

Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy - Jack Conte, orig. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, from "The Nutcracker Suite"

Jack Conte (about whose other project Pomplamoose I have already raved about in a previous episode) does it again, combining the pretty with the jarring, the quiet with the loud, and comes up with something very special. See the VideoSong here. 

Incidently again, the tritone, or augmented fourth, is a restless, dissonant chord that was explicitly prohibited in religious music, classified as "dangerous" and "Diabolus in Musica" (the Devil In Music, duh). Tritone also forms the backbone of 12-bar-blues, also called "The Devil's Music". But you know what song has more tritones than any other work ever ever ever?

You guessed it. The Dance Of The Sugarplum Fairy. I always, in my mind, imagined it as exhibiting the tentative, hovering, stop-start flight of a pixie.

Robert Rankin & Bill Bailey have both spoken and written at length about the tritone and are smarter than me. Go read them. Or go to Wikipedia.

Also, there was a great bit from Tiny Toon Adventures which used it. 

Christmas Wrapping - The Waitresses, from "A Christmas Album", 1981

An infectuous New-Wave group from Ohio, the Waitresses penned the ultimate indie Christmas song. So few songs of the season focus on the single people who are baffled and overwhelmed by all the fooferah around the silly season. I love the off-beat & rushed trumpet stings and the happy ending, because I'm a sook.

Oi To The World - No Doubt (orig. The Vandals), from "Everything In Time", 1997

Gwen and the gang cover their buddy's tale of Christmas among the punks and skinheads in London. Good times.

Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis - Tom Waits, from "Blue Valentine", 1978

Chosen solely for the title and the very cool piano intro.

Recipe Notes

Scanner's still busted, so no hand-written ingredient lists, sadly.

Minchin NinjaBread

Ingredients:

• 150g butter (plus more for greasing)
• 300g golden syrup
• 200g dark brown sugar
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 250mL Coopers Best Extra Stout, or dark beer of your choice
• 2 tsp bicarbinate of soda
• 300g flour
• 300mL sour cream
• 2 eggs
• aluminum foil

1. Preheat your oven to 170 degrees.
2. Put a pan on the lowest heat. Turf in butter, syrup, brown sugar, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, and beer and stir until it's all melted.
3. Take off the heat and whisk in bicarb of soda and flour until there are no lumps. You'll need to be patient.
4. In another bowl, whisk together eggs and sour cream (crack the eggs first, you silly thing you)
5. Desegregate your mixtures by pouring the egg-cream mix into the ginger-mix and whisking it all together.
6. Line a 30x20x5cm tray with foil and grease it up like a Scotsman.
7. Pour your batter into the tray, be careful not to overflow the foil.
8. Bake for 45 minutes, then let cool completely before cutting into little ninja shapes. Seize and consume, if you dare!

Spitzbuben

Ingredients:

• 500g Flour
• 2 eggs
• 150g sugar
• 2tsp brandy or rum
• 300g butter
• strawberry jam
• icing sugar

Spread flour onto a surface, making a little volcano.

Pour the sugar into the top of the volcano and form a secondary volcano.

Crack eggs into the centre, and add the rum or brandy.

Cut your butter into little finger-sized clumps and add to the pile.

Knead the whole mess together into a ball of dough from the rim to the centre (dust with flour if it gets too slick), then cover it and put it in the fridge for an hour.

Once chilled, roll out the dough to about 3-5mm thick and cut out your shapes. Use a timble to put a hole in the centre of every 2nd shape.

Bake for 8 minutes at 180 degreen on ungreased baking paper.

Once baked, spread jam on the biscuits and cram a holey piece on top. Dust with icing sugar.

Vanille Kipferln

Ingredients:

• 600g sieved white flour
• 200g sieved icing sugar
• 60g vanilla sugar
• dash of salt
• 2 eggs
• 100g almond meal
• 100g hazelnut meal
• 400g butter

In a bowl, combine your vanilla sugar, almond meal, hazelnut meal, icing sugar and salt.

Using a dread apparatus, sift your flour into the mix.

Cut the butter into little patties and add to the bowl along with the eggs. Break up the yolks with a spoon

Knead the whole mess into a dough. At this point, it's best to tip everything onto a clean surface to make sure the flour doesn't stick to the bottom of the bowl. Dust with icing sure if the ball gets too slick.

Cut the ball of dough into quarters. Dust your surface with more icing sugar then shape one of the quarters into a sausage-shape about 30cms long. Feel free to laugh at its rudeness.

Slice the sausage into 5mm slices, then shape each slice into a little moon-shaped sausage, thinner at the ends.

Place the moons onto a baking-papered-tray and pop into the over at 160 degreen for 10 minutes. Keep an eye on them. As soon as you see one start to turn golden, take the whole lot out. If they all go golden, you've overcooked them.

While the moons are still warm, dust with more icing sugar.

Seize and consume!

Merry happy, everyone!

Comments

[Bel | Ooh Look]

I adore Tim Minchin. Never really noticed he is a ginger nut, though. These recipes are great. I'm going try the kipferln. But what's a dread apparatus?

[Lucas]

It's a scary looking flour sifter!

[muppy]

Love the use of stout! Thanks for the mention :)

[Carolyn Jung]

Anything called NinjaBread has got to be good. Plus, it's got beer in it. I rest my case. ;)