*sings* Have yourself a very gingerbread-y Christmas…
Gingerbread! Gingerbread madness 🙂
I love the stuff but I pretty much never make it. Until I do and then it seems like I become temporarily obsessed and will make a lot, maybe to compensate for not having made it in, like, ten years or so. Madness.
See, I decided I would make gingerbread men to give for Christmas gifts this year, and so made a big batch. See above.
Then I thought it would also be nice to make a gingerbread house for Christmas Day too. So drew plans and made a few more batches of gingerbread. Can I just say; designing gingerbread houses is a lot of fun! A lot more fun than actually putting them together, haha.
Mine is a pretty wonky little house but hey! shrug. My family politely admired it! And I’ve learnt a few tricks, from my mistakes.
For example; if, like me, you’re a gingerbread house newbie, don’t try to make it symmetrical and perfect. There lies inevitable failure and grief at your own ineptitude. Just aim for charming wonkiness and asymmetry right from the get-go! and then you may happily bask in the success of your ploy, mwahaha.
Also, roll and cut out the house pieces straight on the baking sheet. Picking up and tranferring the pieces can skew them a tiny bit. Ergo, wonkiness.
Make the walls thicker than the roof pieces, to stably hold that thing up.
Also, pipe any fiddly decorative curlicues on the flat, before construction. Seriously, that bizz is freaking difficult enough already, no need to make it more so.
Then at some point I looked my first set of gingerbread men and judged them to be a bit big and not very cute at all; really a totally unacceptable gift! I decided that only cute, mini gingerbread men would do. Went out and bought a new, mini gingerbread man cutter, and made stacks of baby ones. Was satisfied with these.
I’ve kept the rejected big ones with green buttons for my family, and the silver- and pink-buttoned ones are the good ones, that I gave away. Yes, my poor family have no choice but to eat big, non-cute gingerbread men, awwww! I’m such a bad mum 🙂
I used a recipe from my mother’s Scandinavian cookbook, that she has had since the 70’s. I doubt it is in print anymore so I’ve reproduced the ingredients here:
Gingerbread
100g butter
225g dark brown soft sugar
1tblsp each of ground ginger and cinnamon
265g treacle
900g flour
1tblsp bicarb of soda
approx 235mL milk
Melt and mix the butter, sugar and treacle, then add the dry ingredients all at once and mix in thoroughly. Stir in the milk, then knead to a consistent dough-y texture.
Roll out to desired shapes. These quantities make quite a lot of dough, enough for a small house.
Bake at 175C, for approx 12-15 minutes, depending upon the size and thickness of the pieces.
Join the house pieces with toffee, made by dissolving and gently boiling plain white sugar until it reaches the hard crack stage.
Icing: beat 1 egg white until stiff, mix in 500g icing sugar. Note; not “icing mix” which will not set properly. Add in a coupla squeezes of lemon juice to get a good piping consistency.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Thanks for this recipe. I have never had much success with the recipes that I have so this is most welcome. Merry Christmas! x
Lucky friends and family, Merry Christmas! And by the way, lovely article in the Feb/March 2015 Vogue Pattern magazine.
Yummo! That house looks good enough to eat. Merry Christmas Carolyn
Merry Christmas Carolyn! to you and your large and small gingerbread cookies alike! 🙂
Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas and all the very best for 2015. Your gingerbread house looks so cute. Saw huge gingerbread houses in Hong Kong a few weeks ago, they smelt and looked amazing.
Merry Christmas to you and your family too! Looking forward already to seeing all the wonderful things you'll make in 2015! Your gingerbread house is adorable. 🙂
Wonky charm – the best sort! As is keeping the biggest and secret best for the family 🙂
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Carolyn.
Your gingerbread house is so cute! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. I really enjoyed reading your blog this year x
Your gingerbread house is stunning! And I personally would prefer wonkiness to symmetry any time 🙂 Merry Christmas to you and your family!
I love your wonky gingerbread house and I have saved your recipe. Hope you and your family had a very Happy Christmas.
What a lovely gingerbread house! Hope you had a very merry Christmas!
That is an amazing house. Carolyn, do visit my blog to see my first pair of jeans made from Burda. I think I must be a lot shorter than you, I have to take 3 inches of the legs!! Jo x
Wow, that house is amazing! I never would have thought to use toffee to stick one together. It would add to the yuminess too!
Pretty house! It's better than the tepees mine always turned out to be. Merry Christmas to you and yours!
That house is fabulous! I'm certain the 'wonky factor' is the key to its charm. I love gingerbread,too, as much as I love anything sweet. All those GB men make my tummy hurt to be honest, but they are lovely to look at and I'm sure your family and friends all enjoyed munching them down!
wow just found your blog and loving your makes especially those bathers!
Happy Holidays from a fellow sewing blogger in the uk!
bestest Daisy j x
Miam miam !!!! KISS.
Love the picket fence. Hope you had a great Christmas
I think all of your gingerbread men are cute! And I am sure they were all delicious – yum.