Gingerbread house (Daring Bakers December)

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.
Thanks, Anna and Y!
You can visit the Daring Bakers here. The recipe will appear there too, one of these days, and the blogroll can be found there, so you can visit other devoted bakers.
Have a look at one of my favorites at "Leave room for dessert".
And look at this one! Or this beautiful house...
I like this cottage a lot too! And what do you think of this big house?!

De uitdaging van december 2009 is bedacht door Anna, van "Very Small Anna" en Y van "Lemonpi". Ze kozen voor een peperkoeken huis, dat gemaakt moest worden van basale ingredienten. Twee recepten hebben ze geselecteerd, uit "Good Housekeeping" en uit "The great Scandinavian Baking Book". Ik heb dat laatste recept gebruikt.
Je kunt de Daring Bakers hier bezoeken. Daar kun je binnenkort ook het recept vinden, en via de blogroll kun je andere toegewijde bakkers vinden.
Neem eens een kijkje bij een van mijn favorieten op "Leave room for dessert".
En kijk eens naar deze!
Of dit mooie huis...
Deze cottage is ook prachtig! En wat dacht je van dit grote huis?

Scandinavian Gingerbread (Pepparkakstuga)
from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas

1 cup/226 gram butter, room temperature
1 cup/220 gram brown sugar, well packed
2 tablespoons cinnamon (kaneel)
4 teaspoons ground ginger (gember)
3 teaspoons ground cloves (kruidnagelpoeder)
2 teaspoons baking soda (natriumbicarbonaat/soda)
½ cup boiling water
5 cups / 875 gram all-purpose flour (patentbloem)

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. I added a lot of water! Chill 2 hours or overnight.
2. Cut patterns for your 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 cut out the various pieces.
4. 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.
5. Build the house using icing and syrup-glue.

See a step-by-step description how to build a gingerbread house on this site.

Royal Icing:
1 large egg white
3 cups (330g) powdered sugar
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon almond extract
** I never use royal icing because of the raw egg, so I just mix powdered sugar and water**

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.

And this is what I built... an authentical Dutch Canal House (we call them "grachtenpand", gracht=canal, pand=building).



Like these:



or these:



These are my patterns, I have a mathematical tic and found this the most enjoyable part :-)




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Eerdere uitdagingen die ik aanging / prior challenges completed:
2008:


2009:


2008: cheesecake pops, opera cake, danish braid, filbert gateau, chocolate eclairs, lavash crackers, pizza, caramel cake, yule log
2009: tuilles, chocolate valentino, lasagna Emilia Romagna, cheesecake, apple-almond-strudel, bakewell tart, marshmallow cookies, dobos torta, vols au vent, french macarons, cannoli