Guest Blog! Gingerbread Creativity by Mum

  A lot of you would've seen my series of photos on facebook of my Mum's gingerbread creation for this year:  Tower Bridge in London, complete with moving bridge and music box.  A lot of you loved seeing how crazily ambitious her creation was and so I invited her to write a guest blog about how it all got started.
  Here she is, making her first Guest Blog appearance, my Mum.

Gingerbread

  90g butter

  1 cup brown sugar firmly packed

  1 cup honey

  2 teaspoons grated lemon rind

  2 eggs lightly beaten

  5 cups plain flour

  1 cup self-raising flour

  1 tsp bicarb

  4 teaspoons ground ginger

  2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

  1 teaspoon ground cloves

  1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

  1 teaspoon ground cardamom

  1 teaspoon ground mace (optional)

Mix dry ingredients. Melt butter, honey and sugar (but not too hot).  Add to dry ingredients, and add eggs and mix.  Knead on lightly floured surface.  Roll to 1 cm thick and cut out required shapes.  Bake in a moderately hot oven (180°C / 350°F) for 10 to 15 minutes.  Cool on trays. 

Royal Icing (aka Glue/Cement)

  2 egg whites

  4¼ (approx) cups pure icing sugar (do not use icing mixture)

  ½ teaspoon lemon juice

Beat egg whites a bit till frothy then add sugar and juice. 

  The recipe I have is from The Australian Women’s Weekly magazine dated Dec 1991.  I used to buy mags like that in Op Shops, so it was probably 1992 or 1993 when I first attempted a house.
  I use much more spice than stated in the recipe; a heaped tablespoon of ginger, and heaped teaspoons of the other spices.  I also don’t glaze the pieces.
 

  My first attempts were houses as per the plan, a bit wonky sometimes.  The icing sets like cement, but while it is drying you have to hold the pieces in place.  A couple of glasses either side of a wall will hold the uprights steady, but the roof is a bit more tricky and would sometimes slide off before it set properly.  Later on I got the idea of making dowel joints with toothpicks to hold the bits in place while the icing set. You need to warn people eating it though!



  Getting the icing to the right consistency is important.  In the construction phase it needs to be quite thick so that it makes a good glue, and fills any gaps between the pieces.  When decorating it needs to be runny enough to pipe but firm enough to stick to vertical surfaces.  For icicles you have to get it just right – oozy enough to drip off the eaves without falling off totally.

  One year I decided to make a whole village, and made lots of different sized small houses, and trees, and a little road running through. This is good if you have several small children all wanting to help.  Then came the Sleigh running through the somewhat reduced village. You can find the sleigh pattern here: Click here for JellyBelly Sugarplum Sleigh

  2008 was the start of going seriously overboard.  I found a book in the library that had a very intricate gingerbread church in it (way too difficult) and it had stained glass windows so I thought I’d try that on a much smaller scale.  You cut the window holes in the dough before cooking, and fill them with crushed lifesavers which then melt in the oven.  The electricals were provided by my resident engineer by way of a small torch bulb and batteries inside the church, and a little switch on the outside.

 

  During 2009 we had a trip to the UK to visit Gub and we did a side trip to Paris which I have always wanted to visit.  My sister was asking me later what gingerbread I was going to make that year and she said why don’t you do the Eiffel Tower?  I thought, what a great idea!  And so it began.  I got photos off the Internet and made a cardboard model to figure out how to cut the pieces.  Gub was here for Christmas that year, and she helped me put all the choc bits and M & M’s on.  She also had the brilliant idea to borrow Grandad’s music box that plays "La Vie en Rose" which you can see on the first landing.

  That year Bertie had been playing with gingerbread biscuits, taking them to work for her friends, so she thought she’d have a go at construction and arrived for Christmas with a gingerbread Arc de Triomphe to match.

  2010 Well after that my evil sister suggested that I should do an Australian icon the next year.  Why not the Opera House?  Well this was really difficult.  The gingerbread is not one of those that you can bend after cooking so it had to be bent while cooking in a weird opera housey way.  They’re not just cylindrical or conical.  I found a paper model of the Opera House which helped a bit in the design, and eventually cooked the pieces of gingerbread draped over the narrowing part of bottles.  The bits all needed trimming which you can do very carefully with a knife, but I had so much to do that I borrowed my father’s shaper saw that he uses to make wooden jigsaw puzzles.  Brilliant!  You can see the handle of the music box in the picture – this year was "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". This project helped me decide that future projects would only involve flat pieces!

  2011 we were in the middle of renovations, and going over to Melbourne for Christmas, arriving very close to Christmas Day.  So this year’s needed to be able to be flat packed.  I decided on a big sleigh.  My grandson helped with the final decoration, and as soon as it was finished he started eating the reindeers.

  2012 Gub got into the act early with a Koala Sleigh.  This was her first foray into gingerbread construction and brilliantly done I must say. This one went to an early UK Christmas dinner in Chester.  I love their little hats!

  Inspiration for me this year came from a trip to Melbourne and a visit to the music box stall at the Queen Victoria Market.  I was idly turning the handles when I found "London Bridge is Falling Down".
  Now knowing that Gub was coming home for Christmas and bringing the Cambridge Rower with her I thought – English Icon! – Tower Bridge!!

 

  So more photos off the Internet and drawing up plans, making cardboard models to cut the pieces with.  I discussed with my resident engineer possible ways to manage the fact that it is an opening bridge.  This has had to be made in many stages.  It is important that the construction icing is set really firmly before you put any strain on it, so several hours at least must be left between putting up the four walls of the tower, and putting the top turret on.  The bascules need to be incorporated into the plinths, as the axle for the bascule to lift is inside the plinth, so I had to make the bascules, and let them set before assembling the plinths, and I let them set overnight, before putting the towers on top.

  The pedestrian bridge had to be placed when the assembled towers were put on the wooden baseboard.  And then it started to sag very very slowly, over the course of a couple of days.  So resident engineer to the rescue – a piece of wood was glued (icing again) to the underside of the pedestrian bridge and propped there for 24 hours to make sure it was really well set.

  Once construction was well and truly finished, the decoration could start.  More photos off the internet, to get it to vaguely resemble the real thing!  I thought a few silver cachous would look nice on the turrets, and once I started on that I just went mad.  There are over 300 little silver balls on the finished article, each one placed there with tweezers.  The coats of arms are white chocolate, with dark chocolate devices.  Santa’s sleigh coming up to the bridge is the same sleigh, just made much smaller.

Click here to see video of this creation in motion!

  For beginners I would recommend the Sleigh as a good first project.  It is the easiest to assemble and you can make it any size you want just by printing the pieces out bigger or smaller.  The house is not too difficult either, but I would advise letting the four walls set overnight before putting the roof on.  Then wait another day to decorate, especially if small children are involved in the decoration process.

  Happy Gingerbreading!
  Mum