It’s been a tradition in my family for three generations—making
a gingerbread house before Christmas, enjoying its scent throughout the season
then breaking it and eating it to celebrate the New Year. It was when my
grandparents were living in Chicago and my mom was a baby that a neighbor
taught Grandma how to create the house that we still make today.
So no, this has nothing to do with the goodness of my back
yard garden or any other local food producer. This story is related to the
garden of our memories and family traditions that, when we share them,
unknowingly touch countless people through the years.
I was reminded of that this year when I posted updates on my
Facebook page about making the gingerbread house. Friends from college, work
situations and family all commented with their own memories of the gingerbread
houses they’ve partaken of along with me—even so far back as in my dorm room in
the 1980s! And you’re right, no one else in our residence hall had a
gingerbread house in their room.
As a child I always looked forward to helping Mom decorate
the house, but even more to the fun of breaking and eating it. I’ve shared that
with the children of many friends over the years. My most recent and constant
gingerbread house companion has been my goddaughter, Anna. This year, we also
invited a younger girl who had helped break it when she was smaller (so young
that she didn’t remember it).
I baked the gingerbread on Saturday so we would be prepared
to build on Sunday. It was quite rainy, so I was concerned about the
gingerbread hardening properly. Mom has always warned me that when the weather
is too damp, the gingerbread softens. Mom’s, of course, know best.
So when I checked the gingerbread pieces on Sunday, they did
feel softer than I wanted. I put them in front of the fireplace for a while hoping
that would dry them out. The weather didn’t help. The rain continued to drop
outside.
When Anna arrived, we chose the driest pieces and went to
work. First, we made the sugar water “glue” then stood up the pieces to
construct our house. We had a hard time with the front but when all four pieces
of the house’s base stood steady, we put on the roof then drizzled our glue as
if it were an ice storm. The house stood.
We gave it a small test, leaving the house for 30 minutes or
so to go pick up Jeneimy to help us make the snow icing and decorate. When we
returned, the house was still standing, Hurrah! So we cooked the icing and
continued with the fun until we had our beautiful house.
That evening, I put it on a table in the living room,
thinking it was a drier room than the dining room. As I sat near it, I enjoyed
the rich, molasses scent, imagining the days until New Year’s as a time to
relax with the family tradition by my side. How sweet.
It rained all night. It rained hard. It had been four days
since we had seen the sun. Yet, when I woke in the morning, it the gingerbread
house stood.
Until sometime before noon. When I walked into the room
after lunch, the house had collapsed as if an earthquake had struck.
I admit, it was very damp and the one wall that caused the
collapse could have simply buckled. But as I spied my cat napping on a chair I
wondered if someone had been too curious when I had my back turned. I’ll never
know. But what I do know is that I treasured the experience of creating the
house with my two friends. And now I don’t have to wait until New Year’s Eve to
eat it.
If you want to try to make your own house, find a dry day
then follow this recipe.
Grandma’s Gingerbread House
Ingredients:
2 ¾ C flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1/3 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ginger
2/3 C Brer Rabbit molasses
½ C brown sugar
1 egg
1/3 C butter, melted
Sift together flour, baking powder and ginger. Cream
together butter, egg and brown sugar. Mix well then add molasses. Slowly mix in
dry ingredients. It will be thick and take some work to get in all of the
flour. Heavily grease cookies sheets with butter then grease patterns pieces.
You can cut them from a graham cracker box. Start with a little over the size
of a walnut. Place dough on cookie sheet and pound with heal of hand to the
size and thickness desired. Make it as thin as you can without making it so
thin you see through it. Put greased form on top and cut around it with a
butter knife. Bake 10 minutes at 350 degrees. I typically make twice as many
pieces as I need in case one breaks during construction.
Choose the best looking pieces for your house. Make glue
from water and sugar. Start with 1 cup sugar and a little water. Cook to medium
thickness. Put some on a heavy board to stand a piece in. Put an adjoining
piece next to it and use a spoon to pour the sugar glue over the joint.
Sometimes it’s easiest to begin with two sides and the front. When you get to
the roof, put some of the glue icing on the underside of the roof where it will
sit on top of the house base. Next, use glue icing on the top seam. You’ll be
continually making more glue throughout the process.
Next, make the snow-boiled icing to finish and decorate the
house.
Ingredients:
1 cup granulated sugar
1 TBSP water
1 TBSP white syrup
½ tsp. vanilla
1 egg white
Cook until soft ball then add 1 egg white and beat with mixer
until you have enough to spread on board. Add ½ tsp. vanilla. You’ll have to
double or triple this amount to cover and decorate a large board and drizzle some on the
house to look like snow. When the snow-icing is still soft, add miniature trees
and whatever other decorations you have purchased for the yard. Use jelly beans
or other candy to make a walking path to the from door. Let your imagination go
wild with the decorations!
