Gingerbread creations

One thing that makes christmas extra exciting is all the candy and cookies you get to bake!

Since I’m Swedish I have a long tradition of baking ginger bread creations. The one on the picture is from 2009 when we decided to make a gingerbread replica of Disney’s little robot Wall-E.

To get a good gingerbread dough for making houses (or robots) you need to add extra flour in it so that it becomes stable.

Here’s a good basic recipie for swedish gingerbread dough for house making:

• 160 g butter
• 75 ml syrup (“golden syrup” or light corn syrup is the best North american version if you don’t have the Swedish one, maple syrup is a bit too runny)
• 200 ml white sugar
• 1 ½ tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 700 ml flour (approximately)

Bring sugar, butter, spices and syrup to a boil and then let it cool down.

Add the eggs. Mix halv of the flour with the baking soda on the side and then stir it into the rest of the mix.

Keep adding the rest of the flour until your dough is smooth but not sticky. If it seems like it’s getting dry, don’t use all of the flour but save it for when your rolling the dough out on the table.

Let the dough rest in the fridge for at least a few hours (if you have time, leave it over night…)

Make paper cut outs of all the pieces you’re planning on gluing together for the house and take in account that everything will grow a little bit in the oven.

Roll out the dough with a rolling pin until it’s only a few millimeters thick and cut out your pieces.

Bake them in the oven at 150° celcius on an baking sheet covered with parchement paper for about 12 min (until they get golden, not dark brown colour)

Let them cool down and harden before you take them off the baking sheet.

Have a big tray or plate handy to put down the glued house pieces on.

Melt white sugar in a frying pan  so that it turns golden (Warning, it get’s really HOT! Don’t burn yourself!) and dip the sides of the house that you want to glue together. Press the sides together and hold until the sugar hardens.

Once all the pieces are glued together and the sugar has cooled down, decorate with icing and candy or what ever you can find to glue on :).