Gingerbread

As far as I can remember my earliest memory of eating gingerbread was probably at the age of 6. Christmas time of course! It was a huge gingerbread house the size of a chubby house covered in big slabs of gingerbread, iced together with lashings of white icicles made from white frosting. The rich deep brown thick slabs of gingerbread and the smell of ginger......yum. I just wanted to pick away at that house and eat it just like Hansel & Gretel!!

Another fond memory of gingerbread that comes to mind is our first Christmas together with my hubby. He had ordered a huge gingerbread house for me and it was really a sweet gift but it took me forever to eat that house! As much as I love gingerbread it totally cured me of my craving for gingerbread for the year!

My most recent gingerbread moment was last Christmas in Sydney when I woke up early (7am) that morning to make a Gingerbread Christmas Tree . I had procrastinated the whole week leading up to Christmas promising my mum that I'd make it. Waking up early is something I don't usually do voluntary but it was really nice to have the whole house smelling like ginger and the whole family coming downstairs for breakfast with the Gingerbread Christmas Tree as the centre piece! ...That was a memorable Christmas with the fam!!!

Anyway, since that day I kept a supply of gingerbread at home esp. now that my "little trouble maker" needs a ginger fix daily!

Here's my Gingerbread recipe. I like to vary the shapes to keep it interesting.

125 g butter, soften

1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1 egg yolk

2 1/2 cup plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

4 tsp ground ginger

1/2 cup golden syrup

Icing (optional)

1 egg white

1 1/2 cup pure icing sugar, sifted

Preheat oven to 180C.

1. Beat the butter & sugar until light and creamy.

2. Add egg yolk and beat until combined.

3 Sift the dry ingredients and stir into the butter mixture with the golden syrup.

4. Mix into a light dough and knead gently onto a lightly floured surface.

5. To shape the gingerbread you can either roll the dough in between 2 sheets of baking paper or hand shape it. The dough should be roughly 3 - 5mm in thickness for biscuit cutting. For a quicker way to shape the gingerbread I would smooth out a handful into my palm and use a flour biscuit cutter to cut out the shape rather than on the floured surface. The dough can be very sticky so be careful when using the rolled out method and remember the flour the biscuit cutter before you cut. You can use a variety of biscuit cutter so to make it interesting.

6. Bake for 8 -10 mins until lightly brown. The gingerbread should be soft and chewy.