Gingerbread Houses

Rhiannon wearing arm bracelets

Seeing pictures of the cousins making their gingerbread houses this holiday season brought back many memories of gingerbread.


 My strongest childhood memory is that a gingerbread cake appeared on our table sometime during the festivities. 


Warm and fragrant from the oven with deep dark spices I wasn’t used to: the ground ginger, the crystalized ginger, the cinnamon, the cloves, and molasses – those weren’t the ingredients that my mother usually cooked with.

Catie working on the roof.

She seemed pleased when the cake came out of the oven.  I didn't like it, but I kept trying it.

This is the season that brings other ginger memories.

 I am in love with the triple ginger cookie recipe. A recipe that should always be doubled.

And there is a ginger bar that is sliced on the diagonal when it is warm and sprinkled with sugar.

And now I have digressed.  At the table the gingerbread cake was presented with a lemon curd, or perhaps a lemon sauce.

Or if the cow had given up a lot of cream that could be whipped, then the top of the cake was almost covered with whipping cream.  Then I liked the cake for what I ate was ginger flavoured whipping cream.

Naomi doing the landscaping

That is when I liked it best – more whipping cream than cake.

And there is a ginger bar that is sliced on the diagonal when it is warm and sprinkled with sugar.

The easy way to have children decorate gingerbread houses is to use graham wafers as the frame for the house.

Not really fair to call those gingerbread houses, even if the colour is right and royal icing is used to fuse the sides together.

I am wondering at the gingerbread fest that is pictured in this post?

Leo, Hebe, Xavier, Rebecca

Who was the master gingerbread chef?


Arta