THE GINGERBREAD HOME - WHOLESOME, HEALTHY AND WHIMSY
I know, we have Christmas in summer here in Australia, this year they promise a cool 30c rather than the general 40+. I don't know if it's because I am a child of tradition, or my age but I love to think of snow. Perhaps it's because I love cold weather - the food, the clothes, the snuggling, the games, the reading etcetera. Whatever the reason and because of both I wanted to do a gingerbread home this year - just for whimsy. Whimsy is an important thing -you better not pout (with reason or logic) it's your heart calling, and when your heart calls you better listen. When Nessie was growing up, her beautiful older cousins Kim and Lisa took charge of the GBH. They provided all the lollydom that she missed out on at home, and I'm incredibly grateful. Not for the lollies in all their chemical and fake glory, but the experience, the daringness of it all and the connection (even now her cousin Fran sends her a text the other day with a picture of the kids making a GBH with the caption " look Ness, real lollies"). I'm pretty much of the belief that it's actually not about the lollies, but the experience and if you provide your makers with enough fun, they will be very very happy indeed. Can I say a word about 'wholesome'? I don't belive that means no sugar - I believe it means close to it's natural state as possible, moderation, connection, fun and deliciousness.
So let's get to it.
I've chosen to use whole ingredients with a minimum of whole and semi refined sweeteners (namely rapadura, golden icing sugar and brown rice syrup). The home is built on a wholemeal spelt base with rapadura sugar - if I was in the U.S I would have chosen maple sugar as it would give an amazing flavour. I've made the royal icing glue using the Billingtons Golden Icing Sugar - a semi refined sugar which I love (in Australia it's available in many supermarkets, even Woolworths). Because it's semi refined, it will come up brownish when made and you can see that beige tone in the glue along the side of the walls. Because of this, I've not used this icing for 'snow' on the roof, or indeed even sprinkled it to resemble snow - as soon as it absorbs a touch of moisture it will be brown. SO, I thought I'd try marshmallow and very happy with the final result. I chose to press crystallised ginger (I bought some without sugar around the edges) onto the roof panels, and love the end result - and the more ginger for me the better. Children might not like to eat that, what about some roughly chopped pecan or walnut? Something just gives it a wonderful textural, roofy effect. I sprinkled cornstarch over the entire house for snow, and found some shiny cake sprinkly things in my pantry and gave it a touch of that also. You can see I was lazy and didn't make windows - that's easy to do if you would like, but with children involved, I would recommend you keep it simple.
Before we get started, I want to say to you how much I've enjoyed meeting you this year as I travelled with my new book Wholefood Baking, and through facebook and instagram. I spoke to a woman called Lisa from Sydney the other day who had rung, to ask which book she thought I should buy her friend for her birthday. In talking she said that her very, very fussy mothers at playgroup don't blink when she brings and says " this is a Jude cake / dish". Please know I understand that trust given, and thank you for having me in your kitchen and home, and know I consider it a deeply meaningful honour and privilege. Blessings to you and your loved ones for a beautiful Christmas season and blessed 2014.
x Jude
WHOLESOME GINGERBREAD HOME
Spelt Base, contains dairy
Before you start, you will need to make a template. Make sure that it is fairly sturdy cardboard, as that is easier to lift off the pastry. Mine were
- Front Panel 12 x 18cm + 6cm peak at it's height - cut 2
- Side Panel 16 x 18 cm - cut 2
- Roof Panel with overhang 10 x 18cm - cut 2
You need to make your house components first, then put the house together before making the marshmallow.
GINGERBREAD
4 cups (580gm) wholemeal spelt or cake wholemeal wheat flour. If using all purpose wheat flour use 480gm
1 3/4 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (mine was strong, use yours as desired)
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
3/4 teaspoon baking soda (bi carb soda)
130 gm unsalted butter - soft
good pinch fine sea salt
1 cup rapadura sugar
2 large eggs
90ml organic molasses
1/4 cup glace or crystallised ginger as desired, or pecan or walnuts (really, any nut is fine or seed) for the roof
Add the flour, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom and cloves to a bowl and sieve in the baking soda, whisk through combine the ingredients.
Beat the soft butter and sugar until creamy, add the eggs one at a time beating well after each addition until creamy. Add the molasses and beat well - an electric beater with a paddle attachment is best for this. Add the flour mix and with mixer on a low speed beat until just incorporated. Separate the dough into two and place in plastic bags - shaping them into rectangles very roughly 14 x 16cm will help later when rolling. Make sure you get all the air out, seal and leave in the fridge - at least 2 hours.
Pre heat oven to 180c or if fan forced 150 - 165c (the faster the fan, the lower the temp).
Roll one piece of dough at a time - depending on the weather it may take a little time to be rollable. Roll between 2 sheets of baking paper. All pastry/dough has a rolling sweet spot - in the beginning it may well be too cold and crack slightly when rolling. As you roll, the dough will stick to the paper - lift the paper off releasing it - replace the paper (do not press it back onto the dough but just let it sit there) then turn it over and do the same thing - you are now ready to roll again. Roll to a thickness of 3MM - it needs to be quite sturdy. Fit what templates you can - I find I do the front and back panels with the first batch of pastry, 2 side panels with the second and re roll the scraps for the roof. Cut around the template with a sharp knife, larger is better. If you want to make a door or window, use a cookie cutter/knife to do so. If you've cut a door, gently lift out and cook - it won't take long. When you've cut the panels, remove the left over pastry and layer it on top of each other in the plastic bag, then flatten them a bit before refrigerating. The pastry must be chilled to roll. Don't try to remove the dough from the paper - it will loose it's shape, but rather cut - you can see below, and slide a tray underneath the paper, then arrange the shapes to fit on the tray. Bake for 20 - 25 or even 30ish minutes for the larger pieces or until done. The dough must be well cooked, as it has to have strength to stand up - very golden on the edges is good. When cooked, leave on the tray for 10 minutes before carefully moving (still on it's paper) to a cooling rack. When the first lot is in the oven, repeat with the second batch of dough, and then finally do the roof from the scraps that have now chilled. There should be plenty left over for gingerbread shapes (men, women, stars etc). When the roof templates are cut, press finely chopped (and quite thin) pieces into it gently. I actually sprinkled them over the dough, covered it with baking paper and very gently rolled over it, taking care not to actually roll the pastry at all.
PUTTING IT TOGETHER
It is best to make the royal icing and glue the house together first, THEN start on making the marshmallow. The gingerbread pieces must be absolutely cool before using. Decide also what you are going to put it on - I have simply used a chopping board.
ROYAL ICING / GLUE / CEMENT
2 cups Billingtons Golden Icing Sugar + extra if needed
1 large egg white or 2 small egg whites
MARSHMALLOW
SNOW
1 tablespoon cornstarch
To make the royal icing - the glue/cement to stick the house together, sieve 2 cups icing sugar into a bowl. Add the egg white/s to a bowl, and using electric mixer with a whisk attachment, whisk until just beginning to be fluffy. Add the icing sugar and starting slowly, beat until lovely and smooth. Add extra icing sugar if it is not thick enough. Place 2/3 into a large piping bag fitted with a 5 - 7mm nozzle.
Start by piping a good amount of cement along the sides of the front and along the sides of the side panel. Join together on the board - you will find you only have to hold them for a few seconds or so, and leave to 'set' for a couple of minutes before continuing on with the back and other side panel. Make sure it is nice and sturdy/set before doing the roof. Be generous with your cement, and nothing says you can't go along with the piping back and add more to the gaps if needed. For the roof panel, you will need to pipe cement along the top of the house sides, front and back tops and along the top of the roof panel. Place them on one at a time, and then pipe more as needed. Using a finer piping tip, use the remaining icing to decorate as needed (window's, etc).
NEXT STEP IS TO MAKE THE MARSHMALLOW. I made the recipe in a vanilla version without the strawberries, and did a couple of different things. Firstly, replace the strawberries with water. When adding the gelatine to the water make sure you sprinkle it in and mix it until smooth - no lumps. Secondly, reduce the amount of sugar - there is no acidity from the strawberries to buffer the sweetness, reduce it to 280 - 300 - no less, or you won't have what you need. Thirdly, I used 3 kinds of vanilla - all my favourite Heilala brand - I scraped out vanilla seed from 1 pod and added the seeds to the sugar, water, brown rice syrup mixture + the paste and extract as per the recipe. The trick with using the marshmallow to decorate was beating it for ages - easily about 15 - 20 minutes which helped it to cool and set up a bit. You can see how I used mine, but even at this stage it would still run - I couldn't make snow banks against the house, as it just ran down so I would say practice before you commit yourself. You will have left over marshmallow (terrible I know). I've set mine up to use in a rocky road - you can read how to set it in the recipe.
When you've snowed it with marshmallow, add twigs, trees etc as desired and stick them with the glue.
Below is a photo of the Nectarine Chutney I posted on Instagram the other day, with people asking for the recipe. I will edit this post later and add the recipe, just want to get the GBH up today!!
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