Gingerbread isn't just for Christmas

Every Christmas for at least the last 5 years I've declared "this is the year I'll finally make a gingerbread house" and it never happens. Last year was no exception.

However I was determined not to let the occasion slip past yet another year, especially since I had bought all the ingredients and decorations. Instead I rescheduled the bake for Easter. Why should Christmas have all the fun? Stick some mini eggs on it and you've got yourself an Easter gingerbread house.

The recipe and house template are from BBC Good Food. It's easily the largest quantity of dough I have ever handled. It barely fitted in my massive and deep ceramic kitchenaid mixing bowl; no other bowl I owned could contain the dough beast. Goodness knows what you do if you don't own a big stand mixer.

The dough is divided into quarters once you've completed the Olympic task of bringing it all together. Out of curiosity I weighed each quarter and they were roughly 500g each, so that's 2kg of gingerbread dough in total!

I made a few deviations from the recipe including subbing out some of the mixed spice in favour of cinnamon, using a mixture of brown sugars (I fancied adding some dark sugar), resting the dough in the fridge for half an hour before rolling out my shapes, rolling out the dough between sheets of grease proof paper and using a boiled sugar/caramel to stick the house together as it sets quicker than royal icing.

I also didn't fancy cutting out gingerbread tiles for the roof as I wanted to use white chocolate buttons (which, coincidentally and impressively, I had exactly the right number of for sticking to the roof.) This left me with a lot of left over dough which I turned into biscuits using my Spring themed cutters: flowers, hearts, bunnies and chicks. The bunnies are my favourite, they looked adorable.

The finished house is perhaps a bit rough and ready and my piping could certainly be a lot neater but I'm really pleased with my first attempt. I think piping/decorating the sections before assembly would result in neater piping, so that's something to bear in mind if/when I make another one. I would also reduce the quantities for just making a house which would make the dough a more manageable size. As you can below, my left overs created a big tin full of biscuits.

However I doubt I'll ever recreate this at Christmas time as it was so labour and time intensive. It was good fun but basically took up a whole weekend: one afternoon baking, one afternoon decorating. In a funny way I think it was actually a better idea to make in Spring, more chilled as I had less other obligations. Maybe I'll do a gingerbread summer house next!

Almost forgot to mention that the gingerbread tasted lovely - a classic soft gingerbread, rather than a crisp biscuit. Thank goodness it tasted good after all that effort!

gingerbread dinosaur invasion

My friend Sarah gives the best Christmas presents, 3D dinosaur biscuit cutters!

I was a bit miffed that I hadn't got around to baking any gingerbread biscuits at Christmas, so these cutters gave me the perfect excuse to bake some this month.

 camouflage stegosaurus

The biscuits turned out more like super syrup-y gingersnaps than gingerbread as the dough needed to be rolled out fairly thin in order for the dinosaur legs to slot comfortably into the bodies. That's not necessarily a bad thing but it's worth noting they're crunchy rather than a chewy centred gingerbread. They're great tea dunkers, providing you're ok with the possibility of icing flaking off into your cup. (Part of the dunking thrill surely?)

 "Hey, what do you think of my Lord Nelson jug. Pretty groovy, right?"
"Fabulously retro, darling'"

Needless to say, I had a lot of fun making and decorating these dinosaurs and setting them around my dresser in crockery attack formations. They've certainly amused all the visitors to the house this week. Dinosaur fun for everybody!

Gingerbread/snap dinosaur biscuits
Original recipe from a recipe card in an Usborne baking pack (funnily enough, I think it was also a present from Sarah many years ago.) I've made a couple of tweaks/substitutions:

350g (12oz) plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp mixed spice
100g (4oz) chilled butter
100g (4oz) light muscovado sugar 
75g (2oz) soft dark brown sugar
1 large egg
2- 3 tbsp golden syrup (enough to bring the dough together)

for the royal icing:
1 egg white (or 1 sachet of egg white powder)
1/2 tsp lemon juice
300g icing sugar

Sieve the flour, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and ginger into a large bowl. Cut the butter into small chunks and rub into the flour with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar. Break the eggs into a jug and lightly beat with a fork. Add the syrup and beat again. Pour the eggy syrup into the flour mixture and mix until it forms a dough. Wrap in the dough clingfilm and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.

Cut the dough in half. Sprinkle the (clean) worktop with flour and roll out one piece of the dough until it's about 3mm thick if you're making 3D dinosaurs (about 5mm thick is fine for ordinary biscuits). Cut out all your shapes and transfer to baking trays (make sure your trays have a dusting of flour to stop your biscuits sticking!) Roll out the rest of the dough and cut more shapes. 

Bake in the oven for about 8 minutes. Keep an eye on them! The dough is rolled out thin so the edges don't take long to colour. Thicker (ordinary) biscuits will take longer, 12-15 minutes. Leave to cool on the trays for a few minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack. 

For royal icing, beat together the egg white and lemon juice. (If using egg white powder, follow the instructions on the sachet to reconstitute the egg white before adding the lemon.) Gradually add the icing sugar, mixing well between each addition. Whisk the mixture until it forms stiff peaks. Add more icing sugar if you think it looks too runny. Divide the mixture into a couple of bowls and add a few drops of food colouring. Once you've reached  your desired shade dollop the icing into a piping bag fitted with a nozzle and have fun decorating!