There will be a party on the 23rd for a missionary Christmas celebration. The opening activity is making gingerbread houses. Sister Dick wanted me to look for graham crackers to make the houses and create some certificates for the winners. I volunteered to make actual gingerbread houses and to put them together. I did find graham crackers in my ramblings (they are rare here and found only in American stores), I am making some graham cracker houses to decorate too. Since there are 8 couples and a single person, I am making 9 gingerbread houses and 9 graham cracker houses. Leaving the choice to decorate as a couple or do your own.
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| Sister Dick, originator of this party and author of Gingerbread house decoration |
There is a learning curve for every endeavor in a new culture or country. Converting cups and grams, Fahrenheit and Celsius, and learning how to turn on my oven has taken me a minute or two [hundred].
You can find recipes here and here and here for the gingerbread. Just pick which ingredients in the recipe are in your neighborhood. Mine has metrics, I had to figure out the proportions I needed.
I have golden syrup instead of molasses, and brown sugar that has large crystals, and a call for self-raising flour, and I'm off!
Here is a link for the Royal icing that is used to "glue" the houses together.
If you know Laura Nausin, she is really good about mixing up a batch that is needed i.e. activity day girls, or party. If you are lucky like I was, she even mixed up the gingerbread dough. Ah, for the good old days.
So here are some tips for baking in a metric society and making gingerbread houses:
1. Figure out how the oven works. Good luck if google doesn't pop up your particular oven. Ask a friend.
2. Understand how grams and cups are not equal. Try this link.
3. Watch for package measurements of the grams! Much simpler than figuring out in my head.
4. Tape parchment paper/baking paper down on your sideboard, then flour and roll the dough with another parchment paper on top.
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| Taped a sheet of parchment/baking paper down to the counter |
5. Flour ALL utensils in the pick up process!
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| All spatula pick-up needs to be floured, or great frustration follows |
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| After placing dough on the baking sheet, even up the walls and edges |
6. Watch carefully the last few minutes while baking or the houses will burn instead of 'crisp'.
7. While the gingerbread is fresh out of the oven, is a good time to cut out windows, doors, and if you are smart even off the edges that have bulged out in cooking. I learned this a little late, I did have several house held together by icing because the edges did not match, I said, "next time".
8. The icing can be time consuming and tricky IF you have a donated 7 lb package of powdered sugar that is lumpy! It all has to be sifted. At the very end of the sifting is little hard rock crystals that feel like miniature gravel. One idea is to blend it in a blender - I don't know how that works or doesn't work.
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| This is a time to have a movie on, or something great to listen too. Takes time. |
9. Icing can make up a multitude of errors!
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| Houses ready for transport |
10. Make sure you have lots of fun!!
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| Sister Despain with her finished creation |
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| The houses with their honors |
We had awards as, "Most likely to Win in The Great British Baking Show", Picasso Award, Monet Award, Curb Appeal, etc., etc.
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