daring bakers: gingerbread house

I hadn't been able to do any of the Daring Bakers challenges this semester, so I was very excited to finish up all my work and discover that the December challenge was a gingerbread house! How exciting! I had a lot of fun putting this together and it was actually fairly easy. My (first batch) of icing was super thick and it made putting the house together a snap. My second batch was a little runny, but it wasn't too bad. It just made my snow covered house look like a melting snow covered house. It's a post-blizzard gingerbread house.

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.

I used the Scandinavian recipe and like most found it to be very very dry. Even after a night in the fridge it was still crumbles so I splashed some water on it, kneaded it in, and then rolled it out. Eventually it came together and I didn't notice any shrinkage. Or if it did shrink, it uniformly shrunk which is no problem! I cut the recipe in half cause I wanted a cute little house anyway.

All in all, I had a lot of fun completing this challenge. It was a great way to spend a snowy afternoon!

Scandinavian Gingerbread (Pepparkakstuga)
from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas

1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup brown sugar, well packed
2 tablespoons cinnamon
4 teaspoons ground ginger
3 teaspoons ground cloves
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ cup boiling water
5 cups all-purpose flour

1. Preheat the oven to 375. 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 front and back walls, roof, and side walls using cardboard or paper. (I used this template).

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. (I rolled the dough out on a floured surface and cut out my shapes and transferred them to the baking sheet. I'm not really sure what this other business is about)

4. 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 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.