Sugar, spice and everything nice

Sugar, spice and everything nice

To Pauline D. Loh, nothing spells festive like the spicy scent of gingerbread baking. She shares the recipe and some decorating ideas.

This is the second year I am writing about gingerbread, breaking my own unwritten rule about not repeating recipes. But I have had too many questions about making gingerbread to ignore the requests. Personally, I love gingerbread. Characters from fairytales around the world peopled my own childhood, including a cheeky runaway gingerbread boy who got eaten by a fox before he got too far away. It saddened me, that story, so I started baking gingerbread boys and girls and decorated them in pants, skirts, pinafores and elaborate sweaters in a strangely compensatory way.

It was a lot more fun than Barbie-doll paper cutouts.

I have since taught many children the joys of making gingerbread, including my vast menagerie of godchildren. Some of them are almost grown now, and I hope they will keep the tradition going for their own kids as a heartwarming bonding experience.

A cold winter day spent baking and decorating will chase the indoor fidgets and chills away, and they get to eat their own creations. It's also healthy (think ginger, honey and whole wheat flour) and better than fast food snacks full of preservatives and additives. The kitchen may need a good scrub later, but you can always make that fun as well. The secret is to delegate, delegate, delegate.

Entertain the children with some history as you bake. Apparently, an Armenian monk brought gingerbread to France more than a thousand years ago and it spread to Germany and then Scandinavia. The spicy bread used a lot of ginger, which was believed to aid digestion. I guess they needed it, for history indicated that medieval recipes were heavy and stodgy. We can only imagine.

When the gingerbread finally migrated to the United Kingdom via various Teutonic ancestors, it was embraced with great enthusiasm, and there is, according to Wikipedia, even a town that uses a gingerbread sign to welcome visitors.

These days, gingerbread seems to hibernate in various recipe folders until the year-end festivities come around. And then you see elaborate gingerbread structures in hotel lobbies, and prettily packaged ginger cookies in the bakeries.

It seems a rather bewildering choice, since the gingerbread house always triggers memories of the horrific tale of Hansel and Gretel, who were lured into a witch's den precisely because it was a gingerbread cottage decorated with candies. The thought-association boggles the mind.

Better to use gingerbread as Christmas tree decorations. The gingerbread smells delicious, and when it is warmed by the Christmas lights, it's natural aromatherapy. Choose a theme for your tree and decide if you want stars, flowers, snowflakes or even bones.

Just get the appropriate cookie cutters from specialist bakery suppliers in your area, or as I do, from the online shops.

I always have a few gingerbread bones decorated for my French bulldogs every year, too. It's their treat, but I don't hang it on the Christmas tree because they are very weak-willed puppies.

And of course, there must always be a generous batch of gingerbread boys and girls to distribute with care packages during Christmas.

Recipe: Gingerbread cookies

Ingredients (makes plenty):

Dry ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp ground ginger

1 tsp fresh grated ginger

1 tsp 5-spice powder

120 g butter, room temperature

100 g soft brown sugar

1 large egg; 160 ml dark honey

Icing:

Lemon juice; Icing sugar; Silver or gold dragees

Food coloring

Method:

1. Sift dry ingredients together.

2. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and honey and beat until well combined. Gradually beat in dry ingredients.

3. Divide dough into two batches. Wrap in plastic and chill. (Cold dough is easier to work with.)

4. Preheat oven to 175 C. Line baking sheets.

5. Roll out dough between two large sheets of parchment paper. The dough becomes tacky quickly if you roll on it directly.

6. Shape cookies and transfer to lined baking sheets.

7. If you are using the gingerbread as decor for the Christmas tree, you need to make a little hole in the cookies so you can hang them up. I find the best way is to use a drinking straw to poke a hole at the top of the cooking. It's neat and quick.

8. Bake cookies for about 12 to 15 minutes, depending on how large or small you have cut them. Watch the first batch to better estimate your timing. Cool cookies completely before icing.

To make icing:

1. Sift icing sugar into bowl and add just enough lemon juice to form a spreadable icing.

Add less rather than more juice and adjust the consistency till you get it right.

2. To color the icing, use a toothpick to add drops of color to the icing. I know it's Christmas, but please use less rather than more color, or it will all look like an Austin Powers Shagadelic party gone wrong.

3. Ice the gingerbread cookies and decorate as you will.