25. Gingerbread Sleigh

What is a more quintessentially Christmassy bake than a gingerbread house? With all the windows and roof tiles piped on with care, the roof dusted with icing sugar snow, chocolate fingers lining the doorway, maybe even some sweets as Christmas decorations.

I didn’t do that.

Who has time to make a house? Why not a sleigh that I could fill with “presents” (read, chocolates) instead? I cut out my own stencils from sheets of A5 paper, so it wasn’t huge, but I didn’t really want it to be, as I had to transport it up North.

Honestly, was pretty pleased with how this turned out, and the gingerbread is thoroughly tasty. Even after a few days sat holding chocolates. My only issue was that it was so pretty I didn’t want to break into it!

Merry Christmas!

Makes 1 gingerbread… whatever you like really. Only a small one though!

Ingredients

• 125g butter

• 100g demerara sugar (or other brown)

• 4 tbsp golden syrup

• 300g plain flour

• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

• 3 tsp ground ginger

• 1 tsp cinnamon

• 1 egg white

• 200g icing sugar

• 50g cocoa powder

• 100g white chocolate, melted (optional)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.

2. In a pan, melt the butter, demerara sugar and golden syrup together.

3. Mix the flour, bicarb, ginger and cinnamon together in a large bowl.

4. Pour the melted wet ingredients into the flour bowl and mix well. If it doesn’t come together, add a splash of water. It should be quite a firm dough.

5. Make/cut out your stencils while the dough firms up a little and cools down.

6. On a piece of greaseproof/baking paper, roll out the dough to about 6-8mm thick. Cut your shapes out and remove the excess dough from the paper. Transfer the sheet of baking paper onto a baking tray.

7. Bake for 12-14 minutes until firm and the edges have darkened a little.

8. Allow to cool and firm up for a few minutes, and then using your stencil, cut around the edges again to make them neat. (I left this a little too long, so my sleigh wasn’t as neat as I would have liked.)

9. Allow to cool completely.

10. Prepare an icing bag with a medium nozzle, star shaped or plain, for the “cement”.

11. Mix together the egg white, icing sugar and cocoa powder in a bowl, to a smooth paste. Fill your piping bag with this and pipe down the edges of your gingerbread pieces to stick them together.

12. As you assemble your gingerbread house/sleigh/city, use a bowl or kitchen utensils to prop up the pieces as you go, as the icing will not set immediately.

13. Once your house/sleigh/whatever is completely set, you can decorate with melted chocolate or anything else you like!