So, funny story about last month’s baking challenge; well,  not really very funny at all, but I’ll at least let you know what happened. I planned in advance to have my challenge done before Christmas and the ensuing chaos. So, my little helper Emma and I started on the 22nd I believe, and finished on the 23rd. My intention was to immediately write my post and just schedule it for a later date. Guess that didn’t happen—but I did finish the challenge early! So here I am now, sharing (to the best of my memory) my gingerbread house experience.

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 chose to use the Good Housekeeping recipe for the same reason as Anna: it was simple and I already had the ingredients. We decided to mix our ingredients at night, and bake and assemble the next day. So, first I mixed my brown sugar, cream and molasses in one bowl, and the flour, baking soda and ginger in another bowl. Emma was very adamant about helping with this challenge, so the mixing took us quite a while, especially once we combined the bowls.

Here are our two bowls of mixed ingredients.

Here Emma is proud of our mixed gingerbread dough

Also, I had heard from my friend’s experience with this challenge that the recipe made a LOT of gingerbread, so I halved the recipe, and then divided it into two discs to chill in the fridge. The next day I took it out and began beating it into submission in order to roll it out. Anna suggested using dowels or rulers on either side of the dough as a guide for thickness, and in hindsight, I really should have gone to the trouble. But instead, with my usual whatever attitude, I just guessed.

I also just whipped up a template for the house, as many of the ones online seemed like too much work, and besides, Emma had decreed that we were to have a gingerbread cabin, not house. So I guessed on a template, and here it is:

Our cabin template, in pretty pink and green

I had a little bit of trouble with cracking, but overall, the gingerbread was pretty manageable. I should have made it thicker, though. Anyway, after cutting out the pieces, I decided to score them before they cooked so they would have a little bit of a log look to them. Then I scored the chimney pieces to look like brick. This whole process took me quite a bit of time, but other than Emma getting bored and then becoming slightly obnoxious, there were no major disasters, so that was nice.

Here are two sides and parts of the chimney cooking

And here are all the finished pieces

I didn’t have time to assemble right away like I thought I would, but I roughly held the pieces together when they came out of the oven to see if they would all fit together. They sort of did, so I figured that would be good enough. I did end up remaking part of the chimney, as one side came out really warped, but I had plenty of leftover gingerbread, so it was an easy fix.

I decided to go with the simple syrup, as I figured it would be stickier and easier. I have never boiled sugar before, and I really did not believe my eyes as it was happening. I put my sugar in the pan and started heating it, and was amazed when it started melting. Perhaps this seems like a simple thing to you, but seriously, I was incredulous that just sugar was turning into this goopy mess. And then it turned brown, which really confused and amazed me, as sugar is white. Anyway, I think I burned mine a little. I thought I was being careful, and as soon as it hit boiling I took it off the heat, but it continued to bowl on its own for like 5 minutes, and smelled horrible, so I guess this was one tiny part that didn’t go as planned. But then it turned sticky, so it was all ok.

This syrup was nuts. It was incredibly sticky and dried in an instant and was really hard. It was like hot glue except the usability window was even smaller. I just started throwing it on as fast as I could, despite any messes, figuring I could hide it all with icing later. So before I put on the last roof piece, here’s a picture of the messy inside:

Sugar and gingerbread

It stuck together very nicely, and I didn’t need any other supports. Unfortunately, I got distracted with other things and never decorated my house, but I had still completed all the requirements of the challenge. After a few days of just sitting out, the syrup started to get sticky again and the gingerbread got soft (moisture in the air??), and I came in one morning to find part of the roof sliding off. I have no doubt that had I reinforced the whole thing with icing it would have lasted longer, but with the coming festivities, I wasn’t too disappointed. We enjoyed our cabin.

The almost-finished product

The final gingerbread cabin

Emma at her wedding (this is what she did once she got bored)

If you’d like the whole recipe, you can find it here!

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