I've wanted to do one of these for the longest time. I've just never had the time or an easily accessable willing helper to do it. My darling mummy and I decided to do it this year. We had a few days in which to do it and we got a wee bit carried away, but nevertheless I do love it. It keeps in theme - red and white of course! - with some nordic type snow around the garden.
The main recipe is a Donna Hay one - found on another blog (but apparently published in the Dec/Jan 2010 edition of Donna Hay Magazine) - but it makes some nice gingerbread...and for the vegans out there, until you start dressing it with royal icing, it can actually be vegan.
Ingredients
7 1/2 cups plain flour
3 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
3 heaped teaspoons ground ginger (I love my gingerbread gingery...if you don't, reduce the amount accordingly)
375g dairy free spread
1 2/3 cups golden syrup
And here I diverge - I added 1 teaspoon ground white pepper, 3/4 tablespoon nutmeg and 1 tablespoon cinnamon (ground dutch cinnamon smells SO GOOD!) because I quite like a spicy gingerbread, with just a little kick of heat.
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| All ready to go... |
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| A word to the wise...probably better to use the dough attachment, not the whisk attachment :-) |
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| Add flour... |
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| ...and baking soda... |
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| ...brown sugar.... |
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| ...ground ginger... |
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| ...and all the other spices. Add the 'butter'...and then... |
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| ...combine... |
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| After it was combined I kneaded it on the bench until it was a beautiful glistening dough. |
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| Once it is all kneaded it can then be rolled out into sheets of gingerbread. |
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| I like to roll my cookie dough between two sheets of grease-proof paper. | | |
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At this point I stopped taking photos. Shocking. I know. Further instructions - roll out gingerbread to 3-5mm thickness. Make sure the rolling is even otherwise it will not cook evenly. Once it is rolled out you can chill it so it doesn't stick to the pattern
Lay out the pattern ( I just googled one - you can get it
here ) on the gingerbread sheets. Cut out around the pattern and then transfer while still on the grease-proof paper to the baking tray. Apparently you should bake them at 180 degrees C for 15-20 mins (until done really) depending on the thickness and size of the sheets of cookie dough. We had to put quite a few back in the oven as the gingerbread was too soft. Just don't burn them (blush).
Once it is cooked and cooled you can start the assembly.
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| Lots of washing up.! |
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| Cooling gingerbread sheets - any flat surface was fair game! |
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| Make the royal icing - we cheated and used packet royal icing but you can be authentic |
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| Starting the assembly. We didn't trust the royal icing so we used alot of it... |
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| The number of red M&M's in 2 family packets. |
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| Our roof was quite burnt...oops. Icing hides a multitude of sins... |
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| A word to the wise. Do the adornment of the walls and roof before you have them vertical. Oops again :-) |
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| We crumbled mini meringues around for the snow and uncrumbled ones for snow drifts. |
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| Every self respecting winter wonderland should have a snowman. Ours is made of rumballs...YUM! |
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| Ta da! The finished house. It seems a shame to eat it now! |
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I'm dreaming of a white christmas....
xxx
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