Gingerbread Cookies and Gingerbread House

Gingerbread Cookies is a “must” in Sweden and Norway for Christmas. Gingerbread House baking is also very popular. You can use the same dough for both. Get in the mood for Christmas. Frida, Ciana and I had a Cookalong sunday night making these and my apartment now smell of Gingerbread and nothing gives better Christmas mood and feeling. The house will decorate my table during the whole season!

Gingerbread houses originated in Germany during the 16th century. The cookie houses, decorated with foil in addition to gold leaf, became associated with Christmas tradition. Their popularity rose when the Brothers Grimm wrote the story of Hansel and Gretel, which stumble upon a house made entirely of treats deep in the forest. It is unclear whether or not gingerbread houses were a result of the popular fairy tale, or vice versa. Gingerbread House making is a true art and profession. Well here we are amateurs trying.

Ingredients:

• 2 ½ dl brown sugar
• ¾ dl syrup (light)
• ¾ dl water
• 150 gr butter
• 1 tbs ground cinnamon
• 1 tbs ground ginger
• 1tsp ground cloves
• 8 dl flour
• 1 ½ tsp bicarbonate

Instructions:

Mix the sugar, syrup, spices and water in a pot on the oven. Heat until the sugar and syrup has dissolved in the water. Add the butter and let it melt.

Take the pot off the oven and let it cool off without stirring.

Add the bicarbonate and ¾ of the flour. Mix the dough to a smooth paste. Let the dough rest packed in plastic wrap. You could let it rest for some hours or even until the next day in a little cool place.

Baking the cookies:

Set the oven to 175 degrees Celsius.

Work the dough smooth on the table. If it is soft add the remaining flour while working it with your hands.

Use a roller to roll the dough thin and cut cookies with gingerbread cake cutters.

Put the cakes on baking paper on the baking tray. This will let you remove them easily when baked.

Bake for about 7-8 minutes or watch them carefully to see when they are done.

Cool off on the tray before you remove the cakes.

When cooled off you put the cakes in a cake box or in the freezer.

Serving:

When you serve the gingerbread cookies they can be served as they are or with icing made from icing sugar. For the icing you can take icing sugar and mix with some drops of egg white and lemon juice. If you want it more decorative you can even add food color to the icing. Use your creativity. This recipe is great tasting, and I can roll it without adding any flour! I love the consistency of it really.

Gingerbread House

You can use the same for Gingerbreadhouse baking. Make sure to draw stensils of your houseparts before you bake. It is a bit hard to get the fittings otherwise.

To decorate the Gingerbread house

Decorate with icing sugar and candy of your choice.

To glue the house together:

Melt sugar in a frying pan. Be careful because it becomes very hot. Dip the ends or add with a wooded spoon or knife to the parts. It gets hard quickly so you have to be fast and maybe have to reheat your sugar.

When you are done add some water to your frying pan and heat it up again. This way you can melt the sugar and get your tools clean without hardened sugar.