honey gingerbread

[MissBaritone]

Back in the summer I was part of a team that made Durham Cathedral in cake as part of a competition to make an edible map of the North East.Our team was from the Durham Food Network and it was important to use local ingreediants whenever possible so we came up with the idea of making gingerbread using local honey and flour supplied by a mill in northumberland to clad the cake instead of icing it. The recipe is ideal for making gingerbread houses. you can download templates off the internet and use royal icing to stick the pieces together before you have fun decorating

250g unsalted butter 200g sugar 7 tbsp honey 600g plain flour 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda 4 tsp ground ginger

Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Melt the butter, sugar and honey in a pan. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ground ginger into a large bowl, then stir in the butter mixture to make a stiff dough. If it won't quite come together, add a tiny splash of water. Chill in fridge for about 1/2 hour

Put a sheet of baking paper on your work surface and roll about one quarter of the dough to the thickness of two £1 coins. Cut out one of the sections, then slide the gingerbread, still on its baking paper, onto a baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough, re-rolling the trimmings
Bake all the sections for 12 mins or until firm and just a little darker at the edges. Leave to cool for a few mins to firm up, then trim around the templates again to give clean, sharp edges.

[MissBaritone]

[Poppy Mole]

What a fantastic achievement, it really does look too good to eat! I would never have the imagination let alone the expertise to even start something like that. Well done, and thanks for sharing

[MissBaritone]

Thanks. I'm an experienced cake decorator and even I underestimated what it would take to build. The finshed cake was about 3 foot long and contained 12 fruit cakes carved to shape. I think if anyone had realised at the start what we were getting into it would never have been done.  Howver a simple gingerbread house should be within most peoples capabilities

[Jayb]

Wow, well done all of you it looks fantastic  ;D

[pumkinlover]

That's superb!
I love the way you describe it- makes it sound easy and we all know it was not easy at all ;D

[gazza1960]

Thats a brilliant bit of arty baking,can you pop around and construct me a 3 bedroom semi(lifesize) and we,ll sit and devour it over a long period with coffee..... :D

Gazza

[MissBaritone]

Thats a brilliant bit of arty baking,can you pop around and construct me a 3 bedroom semi(lifesize) and we,ll sit and devour it over a long period with coffee..... :D

Gazza

certainly as long as you prepared to pay really well for the privilege and can supply an oven big enough to bake the parts in

[small]

That's brilliant! I met OH at Durham University in the dim and distant, lived up there for a while...can you point me to any other bits of the map that were made? I've googled with no success....

[MissBaritone]

That's brilliant! I met OH at Durham University in the dim and distant, lived up there for a while...can you point me to any other bits of the map that were made? I've googled with no success....

Try this link. http://www.cakebook.org/