Gingerbread Castle

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 haven’t made a gingerbread house in years and had a wonderful time. The girls are currently obsessed with all things related to princesses so they wanted a castle.

The challenge specifies that we start with our own templates but that they need not be formal.
 I certainly wasn’t formal; I didn’t even use a ruler! My thought was that the dough was likely to shrink unevenly and royal icing can cover a multitude of sins.
To make the towers I used the canolli forms from last months challenge. I tucked some mini houses in, per Lydia’s request. I had thought they would be outside the castle walls but the kids thought they would be too unprotected so we crowded them in. Eventually they were designated butterfly houses.

When one side wall fell due to four year old forces beyond my control, as I stuck the wall back on and decided to embrace the crumbled old castle look Lydia said it was an old castle “for old people.” Along the same lines, the keep has no interior floors or interior stairs. Often these parts were made of wood and my husband explains their lack as being the result of severe fire damage.

Some construction tips: If you refrigerate the dough, allow it to warm enough to roll easily so that you can minimize gluten formation and later shrinking. The smaller the piece is, the thinner it can be rolled and still be stable. Royal icing will work well as “glue” but make sure it was beaten until very stiff. Finally, young children will try to attach every last piece of candy that they can!

Two recipes were given, here's the one I used (I didn't make the simple syrup):

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
½ 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.

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.

Simple Syrup:
2 cups (400g) sugar

Place in a small saucepan and heat until just boiling and the sugar dissolves. Dredge or brush the edges of the pieces to glue them together. If the syrup crystallizes, remake it.

Comments

[Term papers]

Interesting Tips If I refrigerate the dough, allow it to warm enough to roll easily so that I can minimize gluten formation and later shrinking. The smaller the piece is, the thinner it can be rolled and still be stable. Royal icing will work well as glue but make sure it was beaten until very stiff. Finally, young children will try to attach every last piece of candy that they can!

[Sasha @ Global Table Adventure]

We're making a castle this year too... thinking about whether or not to do a big walled area, like you've done.

Looks good! The girls clearly had a blast :)