Confessions of a Bake-a-holic!

It’s the holiday season everywhere.I so very wanted to have a Christmas Tree at home,somehow it just didn’t happen.I was happy to at least make the Gingerbread House and enjoy the festive mood.I wasn’t too confident when I read the Daring Baker’s Challenge for this month,wasn’t sure if wud be able to go with it.Finally made up my mind and decided to make it well in advance and there I go ..hell,the roof broke into two. I was thoroughly disappointed. Later,used royal icing to stick them togetherand hurray it worked. Luckily the shapes where not as bad as I had anticipated, after baking they had increased a lil in size but I cud easily trim them down.I wanted to make a very small house so used up a lil bit of batter to make cookies.Though the house looks good I had to hide a lot of cracks and cuts,to cover these up I brushed them with melted white chocolate.I cant think of anything other than chocolates for decoration so used a lot of chocolate morsels,sprinkles and M&M’s.Here I present my 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.

I used Y’s Recipe ?
Scandinavian Gingerbread (Pepparkakstuga)
from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas http://astore.amazon.com/thedarkit-20/detail/0816634963

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
? 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.

For the Roof-
1 cup white chocolate(bars/morsels)
Stirring in between, melt the Chocolate in the Microwave.Allow it to come to room temperature and gently brush it over the roof.Refrigerate,until use.Decorate it using Royal icing(recipe below)

Royal Icing:
1 large egg white
3 cups (330g) powdered sugar
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon almond extract

Beat all ingredients until smooth, adding the powdered sugar gradually to get the desired consistency. Pipe on pieces and allow to dry before assembling. If you aren’t using it all at once you can keep it in a small bowl, loosely covered with a damp towel for a few hours until ready to use. You may have to beat it slightly to get it an even consistency if the top sets up a bit. Piped on the house, this will set up hard over time.

Assemble the house Place a thick Cardboard for the base.I filled my pastry bag with royal icing and generously applied it at the bottom of the wall and used cans to support the walls.Add a second wall securing it with syrup on top and on the sides touching the first wall.Repeat the same for other walls as well.Allow it to dry before working on the roof.Apply the icing generously on all sides and place the roof and again wait till it dries completely.Use chocolate morsels,sprinkles and M&M to decorate the house.

Tah dah.I MADE IT:-D

Verdict: Its one of the best things that I have baked this season…it was total fun.I am surely gona make them each and every year.Thanks DBC!