Week 50: There Once Was a Gingerbread Village

I really wanted to make gingerbread cookies this week. I bought all of the ingredients, but I’m having some issues with my stomach and the thought of researching recipes and baking literally resulted in nausea. I also have an earlier deadline this week, which meant that waiting for my stomach to settle and trying to make the recipe later in the week was not an option. Keeping to my 52 Saturdays commitment, I am going to post about my feelings on gingerbread and what I might try with this recipe in a week or two. 🙂

Like my mother, I am not one to hold back when it comes to arts and crafts, hospitality, celebrations, or anything involving creativity. Yep, I was that girl in the classroom whose presentations were always over-the-top (and usually included some kind of snack), whose dioramas were magical works of art, and whose models were executed with perfect detail.

This penchant for flair was rarely about getting a good grade or receiving accolades from others, but rather my enjoyment of the creative process. With the added benefit that one feels with a sense of accomplishment at the end, of course.

Good or bad, I’ve carried those standards throughout my adult life. Although, now in my 50s, I am definitely kinder to myself and back off when needed. However, at 30 years old, when I decided to make a gingerbread village with my four kids, I’d yet to learn the benefit of taking shortcuts and decided that everyone would get their own little gingerbread house church or structure that I would make from scratch.

Did you know that every structure takes a minimum of six pieces gingerbread cookie pieces? Did you know that when you roll out gingerbread cookie dough you do it on the cookie sheet directly, because otherwise, if you pick it up on the counter, it will make the pieces uneven? I learned that…the hard way.

With a five-year-old and a one-year-old at my feet, I mixed dough; traced and cut patterns; and rolled, baked, and assembled six little gingerbread houses. A church steeple, trees, and walkways. The Bennett Christmas village was reminiscent of a quintessential Christmas town… including a skating pond, snow-covered rooftops and a Christmas tree in front of every house. That was the first AND last time. It did not become a tradition, and once gingerbread house kits were on the market that became the only way that the Bennett house was going to include a gingerbread house for the holiday!

I’m not sure the kids even remember making our village. This was pre-smart phones and Instagram, so I have no photos of the experience. But, I do remember trying to keep the kids from eating candy the entire month of December and then smashing a beautiful little village into smithereens to allow the kids to munch on the stale gingerbread and rock-hard frosting and candy. Which, oddly they seemed to enjoy.

Additional Gingerbread Cookie Note:
After I wrote this post, I remembered that the same year we made this village, one of my kids had an assignment to make an Egyptian Pyramid model. Most students used sugar cubes but apparently, I had gingerbread on the brain, so we made a Gingerbread Cookie Pyramid and it worked!

 

Original Recipe

The Process:

The magic of gingerbread is combining the spicy, not too sweet cookie or cake with sweet raisins frosting or candy to create the perfect festive treat. It’s the same reason why ginger snaps and molasses are rolled in sugar, which leaves a no-sugar-added consumer like me in a bit of a conundrum.

Every one of my mother’s gingerbread recipes included milk and shortening. I have not used shortening in over 10 years and am researching whether coconut oil is a possibility. Then there’s the sour milk…combining dairy and vinegar (or citrus) seems to be imperative in my mother’s gingerbread recipes, which I’ve realized is because they are more cake-like than the snappy cut-out cookie I prefer. I will bake this cake and serve with a coconut whipped cream perhaps.

The cookbook recipe that I employed to make our gingerbread village all those years ago did not include milk, and allowed butter, making it my go-to gingerbread cookie recipe (but half the recipe). If I decide to revamp to plant-based I’m going to try coconut oil. The caramel flavor of coconut palm sugar will also make a good white sugar substitute, as it blends well with molasses, ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon.

Quite likely, after my 52nd Saturday, I will continue my healthier cookie quest and find a pastry chef to help me figure out how to get the perfect cookie snap in a plant-based cookie. Until then, I’m going to make some delicious gingerbread cookies at some point soon, because I need an excuse to use my adorable gnome cookie cutters!

Here are some recipes and tips I found online…

How do you substitute coconut oil for shortening?

I might try erythritol as a refined sugar substitute, but it’s so white and so processed that it kind of freaks me out. I’m kind of waiting for that moment when we discover that xylitol, erythritol and other sugar substitutes are just as dangerous. Ummm, hello Sweet & Low and aspartame!

I think I’ll give this recipe a try…

Refined sugar free gingerbread house WITH healthy royal icing!

And I’m certainly going to try these…

Raw Gingerbread Cookies + Balls {Vegan, Gluten-Free}

Week 50 Recipe Pick

Pretty sure there won’t be much of a revamp possible..any ideas? I selected this because as a kid it was a favorite.

I love the mom write her K’s…maybe that’s why she game all of her daughter’s names that began with a K

Kyle, Karen, Kristin, Kimberly and Katherine (Kit)

Tags: Christmas, gingerbread, kids