December 2009 Daring Bakers’ Challenge: 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.

Gingerbread Dough for House

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

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.



Gingerbread person footprints!



I found this dough incredibly hard to work with. It was too try to roll out after it chilled in the fridge (covered, of course) so I had to add some water to it to even get it to come together as dough. It was pretty much a disaster, and I was very disappointed.

Fortunately for me, I salvaged it with the water and some elbow grease.

I took this opportunity to use up all the old candy and assorted other items in my baking closet that I felt I would be wasting by just throwing away, saying to myself "I'll find a way to use it, I will." I did! And after it was decorated, and the pictures were taken, I threw the whole thing into the trash, happily.

After making the dough, and chilling it, and then salvaging it from disaster, then rolling it out, and making patterns, and cutting the dough out, and cooking it, and recutting it, then realizing the back of the house shrunk like a cotton sweater accidently thrown into the dryer, then making the icing, and assembling it, and waiting for icing to dry, and.................................you get my point. It was a hellaton of work, and by the time I got to the FUN part (decorating) I was exhausted and couldn't wait to go all Office Space: Kitchen Edition on it (you know..... the printer scene. Only I would have had a meat tenderizing mallet, and the printer was my house....yeah, you get it).


Oh, the royal icing. I used the standard recipe from Annie's Eats with Just White meringue powder, and it was delicious and easy. I had made some sugar cookies and used the green icing, and I didn't want to waste the icing, so green it was!!!!

I will never do this again. But it was KIND of fun. :)