COMING HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS:GINGERBREAD HOUSE WITH DARING BAKERS

Something I would have never dreamt of making otherwise, though I longingly look at pictures in books and magazines…and blogs of course! It’s amazing the sort of energy that grabs you when push comes to shove, and you know you have to do ‘it’. In this case, I had to, and more importantly ‘wanted‘ to make this too.

The dough was not easy to manage. Kneading that huge amount of dough by hand took me forever and left me gasping for breath. In hindsight, I should have halved the portions as I still have some leftover in the fridge. That is also because I dreamt of making this huge castle, turret towers and the works. Thereafter, began looking at designs and dimensions, panicked big time, and downsized my dreams. Fell back to reality with a mighty thud and ended up with a rustic little cottage.

I scaled down a template I found online, and roughly drew sketches on a scrap of paper. Very abstract (cause of my panic), and in the end, very lucky. Had an impressed DH in the end who said I did a good job with the measurements.

I piped on royal icing in abstract patterns before finally gluing the house together. We don’t have beautiful Christmas candy, peppermint sticks etc available here like the West does, so I stuck to basics that I could do on my own. Made cookie dough snowflakes from a set on snowflake plunger cutters that Nic @ Cherrapeno got for me when I met her in London for the Food Blogger Connect a couple of weeks ago. They are lovely! Thanks a ton Nicole!

Putting the house together wasn’t a one man job for me. I engaged the services of the engineer on hand, and DH and me built together our sweet little house, patiently and with much fun. It’s a great family project and was a first ‘building a baked home’ for me. We were slightly under confident of the sugar glue, but woot, never seen firmer and more effective quick edible superglue than this!

In the end we were pretty pleased with our Gingerbread home. I wish I had put it on a better base but it was too late to change that. Once done the hub decided that it was definitely missing a chimney, so I set to make one sawing off extra bits of biscuit I had baked, and voila, there it was! The cookie dough was quite delicious too.

Thank you Y and Anna for an enriching, challenging and engaging project for December. We loved building our home again, and the kids cannot wait to have a chomp at it.

Scandinavian Gingerbread House (Pepparkakstuga)
from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas
Y’s Recipe
(Half recipe would work fine for a small house. I got a lot of left over dough)
1 cup butter, room temperature [226g]
1 cup brown sugar, well packed [220g]
2 tablespoons cinnamon
4 teaspoons ground ginger
3 teaspoons ground cloves
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ cup boiling water
5 cups all-purpose flour [875g]

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until blended. Add the cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Mix the baking soda with the boiling water and add to the dough along with the flour. Mix to make a stiff dough. If necessary add more water, a tablespoon at a time. Chill 2 hours or overnight.

Cut patterns for the house, making patterns for the roof, front walls, gabled walls, chimney and door out of cardboard.

Roll the dough out on a large, ungreased baking sheet and place the patterns on the dough. Mark off the various pieces with a knife, but leave the pieces in place.

[I rolled out the dough on a floured bench, roughly 1/8 inch thick (which allows for fact that the dough puffs a little when baked), cut required shapes and transferred these to the baking sheet. Any scraps I saved and rerolled at the end.]

Preheat the oven to 375’F (190’C). Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until the cookie dough feels firm.

After baking, again place the pattern on top of the gingerbread and trim the shapes, cutting the edges with a straight-edged knife. Leave to cool on the baking sheet.

Royal Icing:
(I made half this portion)
1 large egg white
3 cups (330g) powdered sugar
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon almond extract

Beat all ingredients until smooth, adding the powdered sugar gradually to get the desired consistency. Pipe on pieces and allow to dry before assembling. If you aren’t using it all at once you can keep it in a small bowl, loosely covered with a damp towel for a few hours until ready to use. You may have to beat it slightly to get it an even consistency if the top sets up a bit. Piped on the house, this will set up hard over time.

Simple Syrup:
(I made half this portion)
2 cups (400g) sugar

Place in a small saucepan and heat until just boiling and the sugar dissolves. Dredge or brush the edges of the pieces to glue them together. If the syrup crystallizes, remake it.

♥ Thank you for stopping by ♥

Thank you Lis and Ivonne for holding this wonderful group of daring baker types of people together! Make sure you head over to other Daring Bakers homes HERE, and knock on their doors this Christmas.