A gingerbread house, you say? Well the Daring Bakers decided to flow with the season in a historically low participation month. Y of Lemonpi (a blog I love) and Anna of Very Small Anna (who’s blog is adorable) hosted this challenge, and I really enjoyed it. I haven’t done a gingerbread house in years, and even then it was a kit, so this was a treat =D. Then there was the burning, but we’ll forget about that part…
I had many ideas of shapes, but settled on dog houses. I still have tonnes of dough in the fridge, so we’ll see if more come into being soon.
Why dog houses? Just look at this face:
He’s my puppy. Okay, he’s fully grown but I’m still allowed to call him a puppy, right? I also chose dog houses because he doesn’t have one (and a crate just didn’t have the same ring to it). I’ve also got two kitties (also fully grown). I caught them while they were sleeping. Hehe. She’s a cutie.
And getting back to your regularly scheduled Daring Bakers post:
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.
I love the flavours in gingerbread, but hadn’t ever made any from scratch. I’m so glad I have now. Its a lot of fun and can become whatever you want it to be =D.
Pictures you say? Yes. I’ve got plenty. I think I’m slowly becoming better at this. I don’t know. Daylight helps (which I only had for the first couple of pics)…
I used Y’s recipe, as it had much less flour and looked like it would take less time. I still took all day, then I decorated, but it was a nice and relaxing process.
I swapped out the 5 cups of flour as follows:
– 1 cup sorghum flour
– 1 cup millet flour
– 1 cup sweet rice flour
– 1 cup tapioca starch
– ~1 tbsp xanthan (I think)
One note about gluten free: You don’t need to rest it. Since the butter isn’t being kept cold the issue is about the gluten! I found that putting it in the fridge just toughened it up, causing me to have to work it with my hands to make it soft enough to roll out. Don’t get me wrong – this is a tough dough, but when it is cold, its almost impossible to roll when gluten free.
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!
xoxo
Lauren
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