Be a gingerbread architect

By Theresa Rose
Food Columnist

This is a fun project, good for a snowy afternoon and even more fun to do with kids.

If you've ever seen one of those gingerbread contests on the Food Channel and been inspired to create your own, here's the way to start. The rules state that everything used in construction has to be edible, no cardboard or glue allowed, and herein lies the challenge. The following recipe produces a sturdy, good-tasting gingerbread with a smooth stucco frosting finish. A little care and effort in the planning stage ensures maximum fun.

When designing a gingerbread construction, think smaller than you might expect. Cookie dough spreads. A diagram for the house pictured may be obtained by e-mailing clp@frii.com. The walls are 7 inches wide and 5 inches high to start, which produces a sizable but manageable house. Details should be kept to a minimum, but inventing ways to build chimneys, doors, castle towers and window shutters will make your construction uniquely yours. For two-story houses, you will be rolling out the dough for the first floor almost twice as thick as the top floor, and the dough cannot exceed 3/8-inch thick. Draw or print out your plan on sturdy cardstock and cut the edges precisely. Finally, this is a gingerbread house, to be built solely for the fun of it, and won't involve any county inspectors.

This recipe is adapted from the "1988 Sunset Recipe Annual."

Gingerbread

Building Slabs

Start with:
1 1/2 cups whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
Whip until the cream holds soft peaks

Mix:
2 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Stir in:
Whipped cream
1 1/3 cups light or dark molasses

Add:
9 cups all-purpose flour

Adding the flour may seem daunting as the dough stiffens. I found that kneading is the easiest method of incorporating that much flour, although I have never quite managed all nine cups. An invaluable tool for rolling out slabs is baking parchment. Flour a sheet of parchment no longer than your baking sheets. Roll out the gingerbread dough to a thickness of 1/8 to 1/4 inch as evenly as possible and not exceeding the edge of the parchment. Lay your pattern pieces on the slab, leaving 1/4 to 1/2 inch between the pieces to account for spreading. Cut out with a very sharp knife dipped periodically in water to make for smooth cutting. Pull away the excess dough and transfer the parchment with the cut dough pieces directly to a baking sheet. The parchment allows you to transfer the pieces to the baking sheet with the least amount of disturbance.

Bake the dough pieces in a 300-degree oven for about an hour. If baking more than one sheet at a time, switch positions halfway through baking. When done, remove pieces with the parchment to a countertop and cool. Do a practice fitting of the pieces and gently sand the uneven edges, keeping in mind that nothing has to be perfect.

Now comes the hard part. Maybe I like to live dangerously, but there is no cement that holds gingerbread together like melted sugar. Be extremely careful as this stuff burns like hell-fire and hardens in an instant. Wear glove liners under your rubber gloves and send the kids out of the kitchen. Begin with about a cup of sugar on medium low and stir frequently with a wooden spoon. The sugar will begin to cling together and turn into a granulated mess on its way to melting into a golden glue. Either dip the edges of the cookie pieces or apply the hot glue with a wooden spoon one edge at a time and immediately press gently into place. The bond is instantaneous and rock-hard, with no chance of a collapsed wall or roof spoiling the fun.

Now the real fun begins. Don't worry if your edges don't come together perfectly. That's what the icing cement is for.

Icing

Beat until frothy:
2 large egg whites
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 teaspoons water

Add:
3 cups powdered sugar
Beat on high speed until icing is stiff, about 5 to 10 minutes.

This icing recipe makes strong bonding cement for all the colorful candies, sugars and other decorations you may want to apply. It also works well piped through a pastry bag. You may divide the icing into bowls and color with food coloring. Let the kids help and see how creative you can get. In our dry Colorado climate, there are no special precautions to take to keep your creation sturdy. You may want to cover the construction with plastic wrap to keep the dust off, but otherwise, leave it out in plain view for all to see.

Preserve your creation with a camera. The best thing to do with your gingerbread masterpiece is to eat it, piece by piece. It's best dipped in hot, black tea after a ski or sledding adventure or as a fun dessert. And you'll have a reason to plan the next masterpiece.