SC - structural gingerbread

[Bonne of Traquair]

>Anybody have a good gingerbread recipe for the type of flat gingerbread
>that you make houses and sotleties out of?

I got this recipe, oddly enough, from the back of the box my gingerbread 
house mold came in. This dough does not make a yummy cookie.  You could 
break a tooth on it!  You could break your jaw on the re-kneaded and 
re-rolled scraps.  It is definately "structeral"! But it smells good.

2 and 1/4 cups of sugar
3/4 cup of water
3/8 cup dark corn syrup (or molasses or honey)
2 1/2 Tablespoon cinnamon
4 tsp ground cloves
1 Tablespoon ginger
1/2 lb plus 2 Tbsp butter
8 cups of flour

combine the sugar, water, syrup, and spices in a heavy sauce pan.  Place 
over moderate heat until the sugar is dissolved.  Remove from heat, add 
butter and stir until cool.  Add flour gradually and work until dough is 
firm. To use the dough, roll out and cut, bake at 350 for 12 to 15 minutes.

In my experience, don't just dissolve the sugar, get the stuff up to a boil, 
then proceed. (I've considered stopping at this point and having "ginger 
fudge" but never have.)  "Working until firm" means a good bit of kneading 
to get it into a nice, evenly colored mass.  DO NOT refrigerate this dough, 
or it will firm up into an unusable lump.  Keep the portion you are not 
working with covered and warmish. The baked pieces will be light colored, I 
haven't experimented with ways to darken it, other than getting distracted 
and burning them!  To reuse the scraps, you may need to butter your hands in 
order to knead the dough scraps into a seamless mass.

During house construction, the most important thing is patience to wait for 
the royal frosting to firm into cement.  Give each contruction step a good 
10 minutes.  Wash your hands and go do something else so you won't be 
tempted to move on to the next phase and make something fall.


Bonne
(who made a double batch sunday night and took 5 lebkuchen haus to Frau 
Uden's german club meeting at my daughters high school monday afternoon.  
Forgotten how fun this are, perhaps we'll make houses for  my sisters in law 
this year.)








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