Gingerbread Village Making

Back again after the Xmas break. It was hectic and I had no time for posting, but I have plenty of things saved up to tell you about. It does mean these posts will be a bit unseasonal but hopefully that won't matter!

Anyway, time to tell you about the Gingerbread Village (which we only finished eating the other day - yes it lasts that long and still tastes really good, if not best, a little stale!)

After a break last year, I decided to broach the Gingerbread house making again. Last year I needed to take a rest having been quite defeated the previous year. In retrospect I think the boys were just a bit too young (3 and 1) and I made the house too big and the icing glue was defeated by it's weight!

So this year I had a rethink. I followed the same recipe for the Gingerbread;

300g butter

100g caster sugar

150g d. brown sugar

225g golden syrup

700g plain flour

2tsp bicarb of soda

3 heaped tsp ground ginger

2tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp all spice

• Melt the butter, sugars and syrup in a saucepan
• Add to the flour, bicarb and spices and mix well  (it will be quite goopy but that's ok)
• Put some cling film on a baking tray and pour the mix onto this in a flat sheet - refrigerate this to harden for about an hour or longer if possible
• Roll out to  about 1/2 cm thick on a floured surface and cut out the shapes. Re roll and cut more.
• Bake at 180*c for 10-15mins depending on the thickness and size of pieces. They will be slightly darker around the edges and slightly firmed when ready. Allow to cool on the baking tray a few mins to harden up and then transfer to a wire rack to cool and harden further. Cut out any doors/windows while they are still warm as it becomes impossible as they harden.

I made the houses much smaller. I didn't use a template I just did it by eye, but there are plenty of templates available on the internet. (These houses were roughly 12cm wide and 10 cm deep and 15cm tall - I would guess). The great benefits of going smaller are they get one each to decorate, they are much easier to glue together, they make a cute little scene!

I made some extra trees to go around the village scene as a forest, a la Hansel and Gretal! The extra benefit of this is they got to eat the scene in the build up to Xmas without ruining the houses themselves.

Then to the decorating.

Join the house walls, roof etc together with plain water icing (made quite thick and with boiling water so you need less of it)

Then I put the sweets in portions in a mini muffin tray - to save the arguments over who got more smarties/gummi bears/dolly mixtures/jazzies than the other!!!

 Then let loose!

And this is the result...... Happy busy boys, lovely seasonal decoration, tasty treats. Everyone is a winner!