The gingerbread casbah came into being because every year, we throw a themed Christmas party for around 100 of our closest friends. Since we just took a honeymoon to the Middle East, we thought we could try out some new tricks at a Middle East-themed Christmas party. After all, that is where the whole Christmas thing started, right? An evite full of bad puns later (“we are Beiruting for you to come”, and so forth) we had our “Christmas at the Casbah” party ready to go, and all we needed was an impressive centerpiece.

This is not really a casbah, but a typical courtyard house. (Casbah sounds cooler though, so that’s more of a marketing-focused name for it.) On our honeymoon, we stayed in a beautiful hotel in Old City of Damascus called Beit Al Mamlouka, and I very loosely modeled the casbah on my recollections of how it looked. I say “very loosely” because their floors weren’t made of sour belts and jujubes, and their walls weren’t edible.

For the gingerbread, I used a recipe that C&H tweeted me- and it was great. Alas, I haven’t actually tasted it, but from a construction point of view it was tops – simple to make, very easy to roll out, not too sticky, sturdy, and kept its shape during baking. Also, it smells delicious, which adds a nice extra sensory dimension to the house. The royal icing that glues the whole thing together is just a stiff mixture of egg whites and powdered sugar with a pinch of cream of tartar, mixed with the paddle attachment of a Kitchen-Aid.

I did most of the shape-cutting freehand, but used a star cutters for the front windows. To make the windows, we rolled out the dough and put it on a silpat. Then we cut shapes out and arranged crushed jolly ranchers inside. When they baked, they became clear and solid. You have to let them cool while carefully loosening them from the silpat, as the candy stays soft and molten for about 30 minutes after coming out of the oven. Once they harden fully, they are structurally quite sound.

I thought that doing this alone would be both boring and incredibly frustrating and also not come out as well, so I assembled a crack team to help out. Rodney the pastry chef is always an excellent addition to this type of team, and did lots of the rolling, fine icing work, and construction assistance. Heather took care of cobblestones and windows, while MJ formed small furnishings including the excellent hookah.

I am a firm believer that everything on a true gingerbread house should be edible, and should be candy. Also, I can make like anything out of marzipan or fondant- ergo, marzipan and fondant are cheating. Sculpting something out of a tootsie roll is so much more impressive. So I refused to allow any non-edible, non-candy/gingerbread/icing objects adorn the house.

I bought electric flicker tea lights to illuminate it during the party, to make the windows shine. Merry Christmas everyone!

Here’s the breakdown of what’s what:

• Windows: crushed jolly ranchers baked into the gingerbread
• Tile floor: rainbow sour belts, jujubes, licorice wheels, and silver dragees
• Balcony floors: red hots, tic tacs, and silver dragees
• Balcony railings: sesame candies, licorice wheels (unrolled), jujubes
• Cobblestones: formed tootsie roll slices with yellow sprinkles
• Hanging lamps: licorice wheels and Haribo raspberry gummies
• Hookah: deconstructed tootsie rolls, sour belts, and licorice wheels
• Table: gingerbread star with dragees and jujubes
• Chair: sesame candies and tootsie rolls
• Tree: iced cookie with Haribo raspberry gummy and tootsie roll
• Camels: iced cookies with sprinkles

I wasn’t able to find any other instances of Middle Eastern gingerbread architecture on the web, but I did come across some gingerbread structures of note. Here are a few of my favorites from around teh interwebz.

• Max’s cave from Where The Wild Things Are, from A Table for Two <<<btw, AMAZING!!!>>>
• Gingerbread Houseboat from Houseboat Eats
• Gingerbread Woodcutters Cabin from Sweetopia
• Not gingerbread, bacon and licorice house from Almost Bourdain
• Cool 2 story house by Brown Sugar Bee

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Cornbread can be too sweet or too mealy or too dry or too boring, but this cornbread is none of those things. I’m guessing it’s largely because of the copious amounts of bacon and bacon grease that go into it, but there could be other reasons. I like it warm out of the oven or lightly toasted. With all the fat in it, even I don’t need to put butter on it… and that’s saying quite a lot since I like to put butter on EVERYTHING. But it’s not solely enhanced by the pig products- it’s rounded out with caramelized onions and a measure of parmesan cheese just for the heck of it. So swine up your cornbread- one bite and you will wonder why you have spent all these years eating stupid regular non-porked cornbread.

Props to my friend Rodney for the bones of the recipe, who wants to try this with pork sausage instead of bacon and turn it into stuffing, which makes me ask, great, what time should I be there for dinner, pal?

Swinetastic Cornbread

Ingredients:

• ½ lb. thick cut bacon or pancetta, cut in small squares
• 1 yellow onion, sliced thinly
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 tblsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• ¾ cup sour cream or plain yogurt
• ½ cup milk or buttermilk
• 1 egg
• ¼ cup bacon grease (liquid) + more for greasing the pan and cooking the onions
• ½ cup grated or shaved parmigiano

Method:

• Cook bacon over medium heat until brown and crispy. Remove to paper towels with slotted spoon and set aside.
• Pour out all but about 2 tsp of bacon grease and reserve for later. Turn heat to low and add onions. Season with salt and cook, stirring often, until onions are caramelized, about 20-30 minutes. Remove and set aside.
• Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a loaf pan or square 9×9 pan with extra bacon grease.
• Mix together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and soda, salt, and parmesan in a bowl.
• In a separate bowl, mix sour cream or yogurt, buttermilk, and egg.
• Mix together dry and wet ingredients, being careful not to overmix. Add liquid bacon grease and stir to combine.
• Gently stir in cheese, bacon, and onions. Pour into prepared pan and bake 45 minutes to an hour, until a toothpick comes out clean.
• Serve warm or let cool and toast lightly before serving.

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This is a pretty heavy dish, obviously- sweet and filling. It’s definitely more of a Sunday brunch than a 7 AM weekday kind of thing. Mostly because you’ll go into a food coma after eating it and might need to lie down.

While I thought it sounded good as is, I has a vision that using cinnamon bread for the french toast would kick it into the next level. It’s best to use thin slices of the cinnamon bread for the best ratio of bread to filling. The sweetness begged for a salinated cured pork product so I served it with salty, thick-cut bacon. Elvis may have left the building, but he left behind some damn fine French toast.

French Toast a la Elvis

serves 6.

Ingredients:

• 6 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk (can use some or all buttermilk if desired)
• pinch salt
• 1 loaf cinnamon swirl bread, sliced into 12 pieces
• crunchy peanut butter to taste, about 10 tablespoons total
• 3 bananas, sliced in rounds about 1/8 inch thick
• butter and non-stick spray for cooking

Method:

• Whisk eggs and milk together.
• Heat large non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add about 1 tsp butter.
• Dip bread in egg mixture and cook on both sides until lightly browned. Repeat until all bread has been cooked. You will have to add more butter for each batch.
• Lay french toast on a tray. Spread about 1 Tblsp peanut butter on each piece of bread. Lay 1/2 banana’s worth of rounds on top of 1/2 the french toast and sandwich with a peanut buttered one.
• Heat a panini press and spray with nonstick spray. Cook sandwiches until browned and peanut butter is a little melty.*
• Serve immediately with salty bacon.

* If you don’t have a panini press, you can make these sandwiches and then put them, assembled, in a non stick pan. Weigh them down with something heavy so they get smooshed and browned.

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I made it as a dessert, which was OK, but I think it would be an absolute knock-out for brunch. Next time I’m going to cover the entire top with berries. I used big smooshy blackberries and wished I had one in every bite!

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I made the banana bread to serve at the clothing swap I recently hosted. If you’ve never done one, I highly recommend it! This tanking economy is the perfect time and place for you to swap clothes with your friends, because you get to clean out your closet and give to charity while picking up some new duds for yourself- all for free. This time around I scored a bunch of great items, including a pair of jeans that fit perfectly, a super-hawt Marimekko-ish FCUK top, and an adorable pair of Marc Jacobs heels with little hearts all over them. For info on how to host a clothing swap, check out this handy guide from RookieMoms.

Coconut-Kissed Banana Bread
makes 1 loaf

Ingredients:

• 6 T soft butter
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup lightly packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 ripe bananas
• ½ c coconut milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp fresh grated ginger
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup oat flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• large pinch salt
• ¼ cup toasted coconut*

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
• Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy, about three minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time and combine completely after each addition.
• Add bananas, coconut milk, vanilla, and ginger and mix to combine.
• Add dry ingredients and mix just until blended. Don’t overmix. Fold in coconut.
• Pour into a lightly greased loaf pan and bake about 1 hour, until a toothpick comes out clean.
• Cool on a rack. Serve warm if possible.

* to toast coconut: spread out on a parchment-covered sheet. Toast in 350 degree oven just until it begins to brown, about 3-6 minutes. Keep a close eye on it as it can go from raw to burnt very quickly!

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