Gingerbread houses, old skool! It’s a Christmas miracle!

Disdainful snowman is disdainful.

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

‘Tis the season to be jolly and all that… and what could be more jolly than a good old fashioned gingerbread house? One of my favorite holiday memories as a kid was making “gingerbread” houses with my mom and sister every year. Okay, okay, we cheated and used graham crackers, but STILL, they were beautiful and candy-ful and lovely in every way (don’t be a hater). When we got a bit older, the daughters of my mom’s employer (and our occasional baby-sitting charges) would join us in the house-making extravaganza. Really, it’s not the same unless you’ve got a munchkin there to share in the glory that is sugar and candy and all things sweet. So, in the spirit of my own family tradition, I called up my lovely friend Tipper and asked if her and Nora, age 2 and all things precocious, would like to join me in my holiday daring bakers endeavors.

Tipper is a big fan of the blog, and is an incredible cook and baker herself, and seemed excited by the idea. And hey, a guest appearance on her favorite food blog (it’s your favorite, isn’t it sweetie? ISN’T IT? HINT HINT) could very well make her famous on the interwebz, so can you blame her for jumping on board with my sugar-laden plan?

“Lets bake our gingerbreads the night before,” I said, “So they’ll be nice and rock-hard and ready for construction the next day!” So there I was, 10 pm the night before, and was my kitchen filled with the delicious scent of gingerbread wafting from the oven I’d slaved over all day? Um…. no. Not really. I’d been getting over a cold for days and days, and had a sinus headache that refused to lay down and die no matter how many lovely drugs I threw at it. All day I waited for the headache to pass, to no avail. That’s how it came to be that only 12 hours before we planned to meet and construct our spiced, saccharine monstrosities, I was sitting in a gingerbreadless apartment, feeling like the worst. food. blogger. EVER.

I started talking with Tipper, telling her my tale of woe, describing just what a FAILURE I am… when the skies parted above me and she uttered (well, um, typed) the magic words: “the recipe makes a crapload of dough. maybe there is enough for TWO houses. beats me.” And that, ladies and gentlepeoples, is how Tipper saved Christmas. Or at least my dreams of finally decorating a gingerbread house made from the real stuff.

Believe it or not, she had enough dough for THREE tiny houses, one for each of us and her husband as well. A Christmas miracle indeed. One manic candy-buying shopping trip later and we were ready to go. Sadly, some of my “traditional” childhood candies were not available at our local supermarket (Necco Wafers make the best roof tiles, dammit!), but we found enough goodies to fill two bags – more than we needed, but hey, it’s candy!

By the end of the day we were covered in icing, hopped up on sugar, and I’d introduced little Nora to the art of gingerbread houses and candy-eating. I’m a bad influence. Apparently she now asks for candy with her oatmeal in the mornings. My work here is done.

By the way, if you’re in need of some fine, home-made soaps, bath-bombs or body butters, please for the love of all things holy, visit the lovely Tipper’s Etsy shop! Her products are divine, and as you can see, she’s got an adorable family to support so your soap-buying dollars are going to a worthy (and CUTE) cause. http://www.etsy.com/shop/robinsdalesoap

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Scandinavian Gingerbread (Pepparkakstuga)
from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas http://astore.amazon.com/thedarkit-20/detail/0816634963

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]

1. 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.

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

3. 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.

4. [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.]

5. 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:

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.