"The Foodielicious World" moved to calvintimo.com, Hands-on Baking Session at ToTT with Chef Celeste Chew

Hands-on Baking Session at ToTT with Chef Celeste Chew

Baking Lesson: Gingerbread Man & Danish Butter Cookies

As Christmas just around the corner, don’t you want to hand your hands dirty to bake something nice for your friends and loved ones? Baking can be fun especially when it comes to cute little Gingerbread Man and mouth watering Danish Butter Cookies. I can’t wait to get started on the lesson with Chef Celeste Chew as she share her extensive knowledge on culinary and baking.

Chef Celeste has attended various famed culinary schools such as the Culinary Institute of America, French Culinary Institute, Le Cordon Bleu, Bally Maloe in Ireland and Tante Marie for Spanish cuisine.

In Singapore, she has owned a cafe bistro and was the General Manager and Executive Chef of Charcoal Gourmet Deli + Bar (Shatec) and Trainer in Pastry Arts, Shatec (Bukit Batok Campus). Currently, she is Chef-owner of “Chefs in Class”, a successful culinary studio that is popular with passionate foodies. With a strong passion for creative culinary arts and baking, she is inspired to devise unique recipes and updates old favorites with a twist.

Before we get our hands busy creating the Gingerbread Man, Chef Celeste explains and demonstrates how the dough is made. If you like to try it at home, don’t worry as I will be showing you the recipe at the directions below.

After she have demonstrated the steps, it’s our turn to get busy!

TIP #1: The secret to baking is the baker’s math. By keep on adding flour and roll with the roller-pin, it will alter the recipe and may turn out too try. So the trick to baking is to do it on a smooth plastic sheet.

I wonder what are these knifes doing on my workstation. Actually, all the workstations are fully equipped with kitchen wares which students can try them before making the purchase at the ToTT retail store.

My first attempt in rolling the gingerbread dough. Not too bad isn’t it?

TIP #2: The dough is best being worked on cold and quick before sending it into the oven. If there are any excess dough, roll it back up into a crumb and allow it to rest in the fridge before working on it again. This is to prevent the dough from overworking as the product will turn out too soft and break by itself.

Cutting out the shape of the gingerbread man. I can’t wait to send it to bake!

TIP #3: Rolling the dough is best to have a roller-pin of equal size and not those with smaller side handles. This is to give you a better grip and control of the roller-pin so that the dough will be evenly rolled.

Piping hot just right out from the oven! Looks and smells good!

TIP #5: Do not remove the product from the baking pan immediately. Allow it to rest for about 2 minutes and transfer it onto a metal grill so that the bottom side of the product can be cooled to prevent “sweating” which will turn the product soggy.

Now it’s time to work on the Danish butter cookies. The steps are similar to the Gingerbread Man but this time, it’s more risky as I am working on butter dough. It will turn soft and melt very fast in room temperature. So everything has to be done quick and good. Always remember to work on the chilled dough to prevent it from melting too quickly!

Let’s compare my butter dough with my Shirley’s butter dough after being rolled. Mine is so much better looking!

However, I feel my dough needs more rolling to get it thinner and even.

It’s time to place the mould on to cut out the shapes of the butter cookies.

TIP #6: Lightly dust the mould with flour so that the dough can be easily removed and not get stuck in it.

Ok, this is the example of the dough being stuck into the mould. It’s not easy to remove as the dough is very delicate.

After lots of hard work, the stubborn dough finally came out from the mould.

It’s time to send the Danish Butter Cookies to bake!

TIP #7: Not all ovens function and behave the same way. If the recipe tells you to bake for a certain amount of time, do not just follow it blindly as your product may not be well baked or over baked. Use your sense of smell instead. If you can smell the aroma of your product, it means the outer surface is baked and it will take a little while more for the product to be entirely baked.

Ta-dah!! The whole kitchen is being filled by the aroma of butter cookies. I can’t wait to eat it but first, I have to decorate the Gingerbread Man and Butter Cookies.

Here is the sugar frosting to decorate the cookies. The color depends on which food colouring you like to add into the egg white mixture.

Time to get my creativity working on the cookies with the different colours of sugar frosting.

These are some of our art work on the cookies. I guess children must be very excited looking at all the colourful and delicious cookies!

Shirley is so proud of her gingerbread man!

I am very happy with mine too! It’s so much fun working on the cookies to make it look good.

It was a fun time with Chef Celeste Chew sharing her tips with us to allow us to become “professional” bakers. It’s “om nom nom” time with the wonderful gingerbread man and cookies which we have baked.

Don’t you agree the gingerbread man look so cute? Now, here’s the recipe so that you can make it at home from scratch.
Serves: 6-8
Total Time: 90 minutes
Ingredients:

Gingerbread cookie

Plain flour - 375g

Ground ginger - 1 tbsp

Ground cinnamon - 1/2 tsp

Nutmeg - 1/4 tsp

All spice - 1/4 tsp

Butter, softened - 125g

Light Muscavado sugar - 100g

Baking soda - 1 tsp

Treacle - 125g

Vanilla essence - 1 tsp

Egg yolk - 1

Sugar Frosting

Egg white - 30g

Icing sugar, sifted - 200g

Assorted food colouring

Directions

Gingerbread Man

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (no fan). Grease the baking tray lightly or line it with parchment paper.

Sift the flour and ground spices together into a mixing bowl.

In a separate mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until it is light and pale.

Stir in the baking soda, treacle, vanilla essence and egg yolk into the cream. Mix and combine the ingredient well.

Stir in the flour and sifted spices.

Knead the mixture until a smooth dough forms. Cover the dough with a cling wrap and chill it for at least 30 minutes before using.

Roll out the dough in between two plastic sheets. Cut out the gingerbread cookies with assorted Christmas-themed cookie cutters.

Transfer the cut out shapes onto the baking tray, leaving them about two inches apart.

Bake them for 10 to 12 minutes until the sides have risen a little and are just turning brown.

Cool the cookies for 2 minutes on the tray before transferring them to a rack to cool completely.

Spread or pipe the sugar frosting and decorated as desired.

Sugar Frosting

Whisk the egg white in a mixing bowl till it is frothly.

Gradually whisk in the sifted icing sugar till stiff peaks are formed. The mixture should curl down when the whisk is lifted up.

Transfer the sugar frosting into small bowls and mix in desired food colouring.

Keep the frosting covered at all times to prevent it from drying out.