Gingerbread 'House' Hints and tips, plus recipe....

If you haven't made a gingerbread house this year, there might still be time if you're at a loose end, or check out these hints for next year!

I saw a multi-tiered gingerbread house in a shop window earlier this year, but the tiers were made using a cardboard box for support. I felt it would be possible to do a multi-storeyed structure entirely of gingerbread, so this this is how I did it (ably helped by daughter No.2!)

First came the design. I wanted to make something based on the Flemish bell towers you see in Belgium and Holland, with octagonal tops, multiple tiers and flying buttresses. I thought their designs would also help with the gingerbread structure's strength. I sketched out a design that combined a couple of towers, then drew and cut out templates for every part. When planning the parts of your construction, don't design any one part larger than your largest oven tray!

I adapted my usual gingerbread recipe to make something harder (note: Harder=more brittle!) This is the recipe I used:

175g strong white flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
75g margarine
75g dark brown sugar
1 tbsp treacle
(I multiplied this by ten times to get enough gingerbread for my tower.)
Mix this all together by hand, adding a little water if it is too dry to come together into a dough. Knead a little to ensure a good mix, then rest in the fridge, wrapped.

Roll out portions of the dough between two sheets of baking paper (not greaseproof paper!) Turn them over occasionally and roll from the back to eliminate creases. When it is thin enough (about 4-5mm) peel off the top sheet and lightly flour the dough so your template won't stick to it. Lay the template(s) on the dough, cut around it with a sharp knife and remove the bits you don't want. You can then lift the paper and dough onto a greased baking tray. Bake at around 180DegC for around 10 minutes until just coloured. Leave the dough on the tray to cool for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Store your finished kit somewhere flat and airtight.

You can bake coloured windows into the design by crushing boiled sweets in a mortar and spooning the crushed sweets into a window opening (just level with the dough). These will melt and form 'stained glass windows.' However, you can also make window frames using the templates that you have already created for the windows, and cook the windows separately to be glued on later. This is worth doing if you have a complicated design that may break or crack in construction and need remaking.

Note here: Things that didn't work... Slot together sections of the design. Great in principle, but needed lots of allowance in slots for expansion/warping of the gingerbread. Also very difficult to slot together large and delicate pieces. I had to do a fair amount of 'reconstruction.'

To stick gingerbread together you will need to make a royal icing for piping:

Separate 3 eggs and beat the whites with a little lemon juice until you get 'soft peaks'. Add icing sugar a spoon full at a time and stir in to mix with a metal spoon, gently at first. Continue adding more icing sugar until you have a stiff piping consistency. In fact make it as stiff as you can manage to pipe (if it's too stiff, let it out again with a little water.) This royal icing will be both glue (using a larger nozzle) and decoration (through a writing nozzle.) You can colour it, or use writing icing too for decoration. Royal icing is quite tacky, but will take a minimum 4 hours to set. Your structure will have to be either self supporting, or have additional temporary support (card, elastic bands, pegs etc,) Or built in sections that can be put together more easily. For an instant grab you could put crushed boiled sweets in a joint and melt them with a few passes of a cook's blowtorch, then quickly put the joint together. This will set in minutes and be stronger than the gingerbread, but be careful of burning the gingerbread.

One more tip: If your gingerbread warps, pop it into a warm oven for a few minutes until it gets soft again, then set it between two baking sheets.

So there it is, with my 'little' helper. Of course you can decorate your structure with all manner of sweets etc. It's completely up to you. And if you were wondering... The tower stood for just over 24 hours before the structure inside supporting the second storey gave way! I should have made it double thickness... Or perhaps used a cardboard box?

Stollen, a Christmas treat....

I love marzipan (some don't) so Christmas is a great time with all the Christmas cakes. This sweet fruited loaf has plenty of marzipan, but it's lighter than rich fruit cake (so I can eat more of it!)

Weigh 500g of strong white flour into a bowl and add 225g of dried mixed fruit. Here's a tip: Aldi luxury dried mixed fruit includes cherries and cranberries so it's great for Christmas recipes (maybe not for regular fruit buns.) It's £1.49 for 500g so good value too. No I'm not sponsored!

Add a teaspoon of mixed spice, as well as half a teaspoon each of cinnamon and nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 75g of caster sugar.

 Mix those ingredients together so that all the fruit is coated with flour (always do this with any cake recipe, it stops the fruit from sinking.) Then add the contents of two sachets of instant yeast and stir that all in.

In a jug measure 75ml of water and 150ml of milk, then cut 75g of butter in small chunks into the liquid. Pop the jug into the microwave for about a minute, then stir it up so that the butter is just melting, but the liquid is not boiling.

Make a well in the dry mixture and pour in the liquid.

Stir the liquid into the flour mixture, then start mixing it with your hand until it all comes together, coming away from the sides of the bowl.

When it starts forming a dough, take it out and knead it for around 10 minutes. Then replace it in the wiped, oiled bowl, and cover with oiled clingfilm.

Leave in a warm place to prove for an hour or so. As the dough is heavily fruited, enriched and sweetened the yeast has to work harder to raise the dough and may take longer than a bread dough to double in size.

When it has proved it's time to add the marzipan. Roll the dough out to a rough oblong about 1cm thick. Roll, slice or 'squidge' about 250g of marzipan into an oblong that will cover around 2/3rds of the dough. Leave a gap at the edges. If you like marzipan, you can add more. If heaven forbid, you don't like marzipan, then why not leave it out? You could add a fruit conserve or maybe mincemeat in its place.

Fold the empty third of the dough half way across the marzipan, then roll it over again, so you have a long seam underneath.

Press the ends to seal them well, then place the stollen on a baking tray with baking paper and re-cover with the oiled clingfilm and leave to prove for another 1/2 hour while you heat the oven to around 220degC.

You'll need a good 40 minutes or so to cook the stollen through. It will get quite dark on the outside but can still be raw in the middle, if it's getting too dark turn the oven down about halfway through. Mine was rising nicely, but then sprang a leak and lost a lot of marzipan from the middle! To test if it's done roll the loaf over and press the bottom in the middle, it should spring back slightly.

Remove any burned fruit clinging onto the outside and any leaked marzipan, then allow to cool thoroughly before cutting it or else the marzipan will all run out! Finish it with a good dusting of icing sugar and enjoy with some mulled wine. Happy Christmas!