[Sca-cooks] Gingerbread creations...

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

Use the one with egg whites, and you can substitute lemon juice for the
tartaric acid. This is what I'm referring to whenever I talk about
"baker's cement". It does set rock hard, although if subjected to enough
moisture it will dissolve into goo.

When you are working with it, keep it covered with plastic wrap as once
it's dried it's pretty much useless. Dried bits can be soaked off of
utensils and bowls. Since it's white, you can mix it in small batches
rather than one large one, to keep it from drying out.

This is why I won't give up my Kitchen-Aid. ;-)


Gingerbread creations are usually decorated with candy of all forms (and
those nasty styrofoam wafers make wonderful shingles, btw). There are a
number of online candy merchants, none of whom I have any experience with
and so cannot recommend one over another. The last gingerbread
construction I made was a church--we used crushed Life Savers for the
stained glass (and found out the hard way about the aluminum foil on the
cookie sheet). We used those nasty styrofoam wafers for shingles,
gumdrops, licorice whips, cinnamon red-hots, and probably some other
varieties of candy I'm not remembering (it was a couple of years ago). And
lots and lots of baker's cement.

Pierce holes in the corners of your cookies before you bake them, not too
close to the edge, and tie your walls together with white string. The
icing will cover the string, and the string will keep the walls in the
right place while you slather the joints with royal icing. What usually
happens is that the hole will try to bake closed--small hard things like
toothpicks will help keep this from happening. You have to ream the hole
out after the cookie is baked, usually. Be gentle, go slowly, and use a
sharp skewer.


Margaret FitzWilliam, who is now thinking that a gingerbread castle may
have to happen this winter



On Tue, 11 Sep 2001, Susan Laing wrote:

> Question to the list (actually two of them :-p)
>
> When creating Gingerbread creations, what is the best recipe for "Royal
> Icing" to use?  (I've got recipes that differ - one calling for Icing sugar
> & Lemon juice; the other for Icing sugar; egg whites & Tartaric Acid) and
> what is their expectent lifespan? (ie I start making the creation on date X
> - must be eaten by this date before icing goes bad)
>
> 2nd question - anyone know of any good Online stockists for decorating
> candies?? (zip all available in Brisbane - only silver sugar balls; pastel
> sugar dots & mini m&m's)
>
> :-)
>
> mari
>