Once upon a time back when we were all kids in America, we use to have days set aside in December with the grown-ups to bake and attempt to erect cities and houses made of thick molasses-colored gingerbread. It’s hard enough to bite down and chomp off a few shingles, solid enough so you can lick the icing off of the walls, and plentiful enough to make a few gingerbread men from the excess dough with m&m button down shirts and licorice hair.
This tradition has mixed origins – some websites point to ancient China for the ginger, and others point to Greece and Egypt where the titular confectioneries were used in religious ceremonies. What we think of as “gingerbread” arose in 16th century Germany and was made popular by the tale of Hansel and Gretel by the Brothers Grimm. The dense bread was ideal for building figures and models, and was incorporated into the Christmas tradition. The European tradition eventually made its way to America where we spun it off and made ginger snap cookies.
My mother’s side of the family is mostly Mediterranean – Greek, Italian, Egyptian, etc. Family is very important to us, and growing up I remember spending Christmas together making gingerbread men. The house would fill with the various spices that went into making them – the nutmeg, the cinnamon, the ginger – a must, of course, the ground cloves, and the molasses. Although most recipes called for light molasses, we would always go with the dark stuff – the darker the better. My family is not shy when it comes to spices – maybe not like me, where I enjoy ghost peppers, but the ginger and cloves are my mother’s favorite. We also like to skimp a little bit on the sugar as well, not only to cut down on the sweet stuff, but also because the sweetness would take away from the overall flavor profile we were trying to develop. Lauren however had never made gingerbread cookies before, and she had showed me so many of her family’s traditions, so it was time to reciprocate.
First things are first, we need to prepare the dough. Most recipes tell you to chill the dough for an hour, but my family has always chilled the dough overnight. So I prepared the dough while my darling angel was at work. Chilling the dough keeps the cookies from spreading out too much, preserves the color (especially for darker cookies, which these are), produces a more pronounced flavor, and alters the texture of the cookie. As for the dough itself, you mix the flour, egg, sugar, molasses, spices, and butter (which should be at room temperature) with an electric mixer set a medium speed. I forgot the part about the “butter should be at room temperature” so mixing was a little difficult and caused the dough to spread more. Once thoroughly mixed, the dough is set to chill overnight.
The next day we got to have some fun with my favorite part of the process… DECORATING!!
With the opinions of fans and friends, we decided to make an Eiffel Tower suggested by Carlie Chakraborty and the remainder into a front view Bag End from “Lord of the Rings” recommended by Sarah Rogers. Thank you everyone who sent in ideas!
First off, we rolled up some base pieces to support the structure. Each layer has 4 pillar-shaped pieces holding up each platform before the top piece. So we settled on 8 rolls and 2 platforms.
Instead of using typical icing, we swapped for some white chocolate. We still had a bag leftover from our Hot Chocolate Bar opening night. Icing doesn’t harden as quickly or have the same strength when it’s solid. Icing is just powdered sugar in liquid form. White chocolate is usually the healthier option anyhow. Actually, any kind of melted chocolate will work in that same way. You can experiment with the look and taste as you see best fit.
A little white chocolate on the bottom platform wasn’t enough to support our posts because we didn’t give them flat bottoms. I happen to have some Turkish delight on hand from when Jeremy went to Finland. They made excellent reinforcements. From here we were able to swirl and stick on some cherry pull-apart Twizzlers. with some extra chocolate on top so the platform would stick on top. You never know when your dog will run through (If you have a dog.) or try to pick it up and move it to the table when THIS happens.
Next we let our newest little daughter Clara (She’s 5 and loves helping Papa make things in his workshop) put on the next layer so we could do it all over again. Our kids started playing with the licorice like it was jewels and other accessories. At last, Emma-Belle braided the top which we stuck on top with even more Turkish delight, a pirouline cookie in the middle for separation and cemented it in white chocolate.
This came out pretty well, albeit it is hard to recognize that it is the Eiffel towel. The supports should be more curved and the bases should be more flush. I think for something like this, we might need an engineer to get involved with technical drawings or something like that. Maybe if we used something a bit more pliable, since before it is baked, gingerbread is too soft to form structures like this and after it is baked you cannot mold it or reshape it. This was very fun to do nevertheless, definitely something we will revisit in the future.
Next up, we had some material left for Bag End. We didn’t have enough to form the whole thing, so we decorated the front to look like the image of Bag End from the movie. We first covered the whole thing in white chocolate. The natural brown tinge that white chocolate has (when it is the good stuff anyways) came in handy, since the walls around Bag End are already brown tinged. Unfortunately, we forgot to cut the door and window out (actually, this would probably compromise the integrity of the structure so it was better we didn’t in hindsight. Gingerbread once it is baked is pretty brittle). Instead, Lauren had the excellent idea of using licorice and one of her chocolate coins to serve as the door and the window. Finally, because Bag End is set into the hillside, we took some coconut shreds, mixed it with green icing (to take advantage of the natural stickiness of the icing), and glued it on top.
This was definitely a fun project we got to work on. Something we definitely want to try again in the future. It takes a little planning, but the time is well worth it and is something worth doing together. Thanks again to everyone who helped come up with these ideas!
So we’re not ready for “The Great American Holiday Bake-Off” yet, but oh well. We had fun anyway. Much easier than using Gram Crackers on milk cartons like when I was in preschool.
