Gingerbread - the aroma of Christmas

My house is filled with the smell of freshly cooked gingerbread - it's lovely! This afternoon I made my first batch of gingerbread for 2009. I now have 160 gingerbread babies in my kitchen - half packed into airtight containers, the rest packaged up in groups of three in little cellophane bags. In December I always have near the front door a basket with bags of gingerbread ready to be given to departing guests as a take-home treat. I've been making these gingerbread babies every Christmas for at least 20 years. My recipe is so simple, and always turns out well. I particularly like it because it's done in stages. It's a soft, chewy gingerbread. Here's the recipe:

Gingerbread

Place in a large saucepan: 1 and 1/3 cups brown sugar (press the brown sugar down well in the measuring cup); 3/4 cup golden syrup (or 1/4 cup treacle and 1/2 cup golden syrup), 180g (6 ounces) butter, chopped into small pieces; 1 tablespoon ground ginger. Heat, stirring, over low heat till the sugar dissolves and all ingredients are combined. Turn off the heat, cover the saucepan and leave it to cool slightly for 30 minutes or longer.

Meanwhile, combine in a large bowl 1 cup of self-raising flour and 3 and 1/2 cups plain flour, mix well, then make a well in the centre. Lay out 3 pieces of plastic foodwrap (about 45 cm or 18" long) ready for the dough.

Lightly beat 2 egg whites, add them to the cooled sugar mixture and whisk to combine. Then tip the sugar mixture into the flour, and stir to combine. I use a wooden spoon to start, then get into it with my hands to mix in the last of the flour. With clean damp hands, break off a third of the dough, knead it lightly for a minute or so till it's smooth, then wrap it in a piece of plastic food wrap. Repeat twice with the rest of the dough. Refrigerate the dough for an hour or longer.

Preheat oven to moderate 180deg C (350 deg F). Line 2 baking trays with baking paper. Roll out one piece of dough between 2 sheets of baking paper to about 6mm or 1/4" thickness. Cut out desired shapes using a biscuit cutter. I use a gingerbread cutter about 6 cm (a bit over 2") long for my gingerbread, and this recipe makes about 80 gingerbread babies that size. Place the gingerbread shapes on a baking tray a little apart (they don't spread much in the cooking). I usually get 20 of my babies on each tray. Cook till the gingerbread changes colour - about 8 minutes for my size gingerbreads, longer for bigger pieces. Cool for a few minutes on the tray (they're very soft when they come out of the oven, but soon firm up), then transfer to a cooling rack. Once they have cooled, store them in an airtight container and they'll remain fresh for weeks. I always make a double batch (ie 9 cups flour) when I bake these. I'll probably make 6 double batches of these gingerbreads in December - mostly for gifts.

Christmas in the Kitchen

My kitchen windowsill houses my Christmas salt and pepper set collection, a wooden Santa toothpick container, and Santa mugs.

On top of the fridge I have Santa teapots and biscuit barrels. My Christmas fridge magnets are on the fridge doors - well, most of them. I also have a few magnets (4 large gingerbread men) on the rangehood, a couple of Santas on the dryer in the laundry, some Santas on the filing cabinet in the study, and a row of plastic and metal Santas running down the side edge of the fridge.

More Christmas pics

Still in the lounge room. This pic shows my little trees and reindeers coming down the stairs.

This is my display case of tiny Santas.

The door between the lounge room and the study. It has Santa cards (I save all my nice Santa cards each year) and a set of Aussie 12 Days of Christmas ornaments I stitched a few years ago. The dog is my 16 yr old Bichon, Ellie.

Three of the framed cross stitches I have in the lounge room - L&L's Gift Pf Peace and Spirir of Christmas, and Vermillion's Portrait of Santa. I also have Vermillion's Nine Santa Sampler and LA's Santa Reunion hagng in the lounge room.

Jolly Old Fellow - Progress pic

It's nice to be working on Jolly old Fellow again. It is a big change from the large loose fabric of Angel of Hope, but it didn't take me many stitches on JOF to adjust back to the smaller stitches. I've now stitched the sky section of page 8, and I'm looking forward to stitching with the more pleasant (for me) floss shades of the hat. I'm about a quarter of the way through page 8 right now.

My Angel Room

Here's my Angel tree. It's another dowelling tree, slightly smaller than the Santa tree. This one is about 5 ft tall. The Santa one is 6 ft tall. My dowelling trees are home-made. Just a length of 2" square wood with a series of holes drilled through the sides. Each hole takes a single length of dowelling that forms the two side branches. Then near each side branch there's a hole drilled in the front of the wood frame to take a shorter piece of dowel for the branch that comes out the front. It has a hook on the back positioned so it hangs at the right height on a picture hook that was already on the wall. After Christmas the dowelling branches come out for easy storage.

The pic's not a good one - I'll try to take a better one tomorrow when there's some natural light. But if you click on it and get the large version you'll get a clearer view. I love my dowelling trees because you can really see all the different items. There are almost 200 angels on my tree this year.



This ggroup of agelsis in the corner of my sitting room.

The same group of angels as in the top pic, but on this pic you can also see the Angel of Love on the wall.

Christmas pic - entry foyer

When you stand at my front door, this is what you will see. Downstairs is the lounge room, with my vintage tree surrounded by gifts. Upstairs is my Santa tree and my Santa tin collection. The Santa tree is made of dowelling, and hangs on the wall from a picture hook. It has only Santas on it - around 300 of them. The "Merry Christmas" sign is made of bread dough, and was a gift from my sister 23 yrs ago. The Santa mask on the left and the large Santa on the table are two of my favourite Santas.

Christmas in my Lounge Room

The first pic is of the White Santa corner. The tall Santa is one of my favourites - he has such a sweet face. I don't actually have many white Santas, as for me Christmas is burgundy, red, green and gold. I tend to go for the brighter colours I guess.

Next to the White Santas are the candles and candle-holders. I only ever light the candles on Christmas Eve - but usually only tealight candles in the candle-holders. I rarely burn a Christmas candle, and I never light a candle that's in the shape of a Santa. I just don't think it's right to burn a Santa! I have had many of the candle-holders for over 20 years, and there are a few that I've rescued from garage sales or thrift shops.

The next photo is of my two Santa cardboard masks, which I bought at a Stitches & Craft show in 1995. This is the first year I've hung them on a white wall. Usually I hang them on a brick wall, and they have nice brown eyes. This year, not thinking ahead, I put them up on a white wall didn't like their white eyes, so I popped a piece of black card behind the eyes and that made them look prettier and healthier straight away. I actually prefer them against the white wall.

The final pic is the TV corner. I have a row of light Santas on top of the telly - I tend to pick either very stable or unbreakable Santas for the telly top. Mostly they stay where they're put, but occasionally there'll be a mishap and a Santa will nose-dive to the floor when someone cuts a corner en route to the study - the door is right near the TV.