The Gingerbread Trifecta
three ways to enjoy the season's most festive motif
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I love a good gingerbread moment.
While greenery and candles add a certain splendor during the holidays that I can’t do without, what really sends me over the edge into personal throes of Christmas delight is anything having to do with gingerbread. And not the overwrought, decked-out-with-candy, garish-faced gingerbread men leering against candy-cane poles that you see in some thematic displays. I mean the kind that is nothing but spice cookies and intricate scrawls of plain royal icing. Almost Nordic in its simplicity and elegance. At any holiday cookie-swap you can catch me circumnavigating the sugar cookies (pretty as they are) and heading straight for the serene-looking gingerbread reindeer piped quietly round with a steady line of white icing. This is one of only three minimalist opinions I hold: when it comes to gingerbread, the simpler the better. A sprinkle - unless you make a very rare case for some plain, clear sanding sugar - does not belong on a gingerbread cookie. I will accept one (1) Red Hot candy as either a nose or a button on a gingerbread man. That is one candy per cookie, you understand. More, and your mouth and eye are confused: what is this? A Salvador Dali exhibit?
Since moving into our small house at Marsh Wren (not to mention adopting a mischievous orange tabby who would likely gnaw the roof off) I’ve not made a gingerbread house, but in prior years I had a steady show of rickety, gorgeous gingerbread architecture to my name: a gingerbread Amsterdam canal; a gingerbread Cavalier Hotel. My friend Kendal met me in a coffee shop with some graph paper and helped with the mathematic computations for the Cavalier Hotel - I can’t say the roof entirely met once I was finished baking the pieces, but I will say that without her quick math, I would not have gotten so far as one wing without falling apart, both emotionally and literally.
Yesterday I sat at the actual Cavalier Hotel in the Raleigh Room, nursing a cup of French press coffee and admiring “the sparkle and glitter and beaucoup d’elegance” as Eloise would say. As my sister caught me up on the number of holiday markets she has been to yet this season (I think she’s at three or four already) it struck me that I needed to get some holiday cheer going in this Substack newsletter. And what better way to do that than by offering three options for heightening your gingerbread experiences this season? Therefore with your permission, might I suggest you:
Bake a loaf of Sticky Gingerbread for a friend or neighbor (and one for yourself)
My British friend, Katy, is to blame for sending me this recipe and getting me started on a lifelong love of intensely flavored slices of dense, moreish gingerbread. This is the kind of thing that improves after a couple days of lurking about the countertops. It would be exactly the right thing to eat if you’re the type of person who cuts down their own Christmas tree. It would also be exactly the right thing to eat if you’re the type of person who has a fake fireplace going on Netflix and a Christmas record on the player hard-by. The recipe makes one large loaf.
Sticky Gingerbread Loaf
2 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon allspice
3 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/2 level teaspoon baking powder
1/2 baking soda
1/2 level teaspoon salt
285 ml whole milk (a scant 1 1/4 cups)
1 egg
5 Tablespoons salted butter
3 ounces black treacle
3 ounces golden syrup
1/2 cup fine sugar
-for glaze-
1 cup powdered sugar
juice of one lemon
Heat oven to 360 (yes *360*) degrees F. Grease a clear glass loaf pan with butter, then line with a sheet of parchment paper and grease parchment paper.
In a small saucepan on top of the stove melt the butter, black treacle, golden syrup, and fine sugar until emulsified, then remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.
In a large bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices. Make a well in the center.
Combine egg and milk. Mix a spoonful of the treacle mixture into the egg/milk mixture to warm if so that it won't curdle, then thoroughly combine the egg/milk with the remainder of the butter/treacle mixture.
Beat quickly into the flour mixture until lumps are gone - batter will be thin. Pour into the prepared loaf pan.
Bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
In a small bowl mix powdered sugar and lemon juice into a thick paste. When loaf is cool, glaze with icing. Can be served immediately, though improves after reposing a few days alone.
Make a Gingerbread House Garland
Among the many festive crafts I’ve done over the years, nothing has had more lasting satisfaction than the string of paper gingerbread houses I made last year. When I pulled them out of the box of decorations this Christmas, they were just as charming and adorable as they were when I finished the strand last year. A dozen petite paper houses painted with white decoration and strung on a red velvet ribbon.
To make these couldn’t be simpler. Cut 10-12 interesting house or building-shapes from an opened, flattened paper bag. I find that I can get an entire strand of houses out of one Trader Joe’s grocery bag. I look to the architecture of European streets for shapes of buildings (including Amsterdam), as many towns in Europe already look like gingerbread villages to me.
When you’ve cut the houses out, take a small paintbrush and a bottle of white paint and go wild with the “icing” detail on each house - rather than a piping bag you have a paintbrush and the world’s your oyster. When the paint is dry, cut a piece of slender, red velvet ribbon the length of the place you plan to hang your garland (in my case, our fireplace mantel), and attach the houses to the ribbon with tiny red paperclips. The supplies for this craft cost about $4, and the satisfaction is lasting. I highly recommend you take the time to make your own if this idea interests you! This year I’m making a couple more as gifts or commissions and I have to say, it’s quite nice to have a reason to make this craft again. Definitely a case where the energy output is minimal and the outcome maximum.
Decorate gingerbread cookies
This is my favorite holiday project - I haven’t made a batch yet this year but when we decorated our house, I pulled a bag of my festive cookie cutters out of the boxes and put my vintage Christmas tins under our tree where they await filling-with-treats. Our cat periodically knocks them over on his foray below the decorated boughs to drink from the Christmas tree stand; at least he has stopped pouncing on the lower branches. He can be such an alley-cat.
As I build up my own cookie cutter collection I have stopped to think what shapes are my favorite: the reindeer, the snowflakes, the classic gingerbread man, etc. I keep a tiny set of animal cookie cutters and sometimes cut out tiny elephants just for fun, even though they have no definable place in the Christmas story. (Unless maybe one of the magi rode an elephant to visit the Christ Child? Stranger things have happened, I’m sure). But among all the cookie cutters I possess, I still miss my mom’s gingerbread man cutter - it is one of the old-fashioned kinds made out of tin, and one leg is permanently kicked out in a sort of jazzy way; I refer to it as the Fred Astaire cookie cutter, and it gives all the gingerbread men an extra-jaunty air that I really miss in my own cookies that all have their legs solidly in place. They look a little boring without that extra razzle-dazzle of a dancer leg.
The following recipe is my ride-or-die gingerbread man recipe. I’ve tweaked it a little bit from its initial origins on the ubiquitous AllRecipes.com and although there is basically no other recipe I will trust from that website, I have to say that this formula for gingerbread cookies has cracked the code. It’s spicy, it’s flavorful, it’s sturdy while also remaining soft, it’s moist, not cakey. It’s everything I want in a gingerbread cookie and then some. When finished with a delicate, crackling layer of crisp royal icing, I think there’s no finer companion to a cup of tea and a good Christmas story. This recipe should make about two dozen cookies, depending on the size of your cutters.
Gingerbread Cookies
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup cane sugar
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup molasses
2 cups sifted all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1.) Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl until mostly incorporated, 1-2 minutes. Increase speed to medium high and beat till fluffy, then beat in egg yolk and molasses.
2.) In another bowl mix together all dry ingredients. Gradually add the flour mixture into the butter mixture until combined and smooth, mixing on low.
3.) Divide dough in half and wrap in plastic wrap or waxed paper. Refrigerate 1-3 hours, or overnight.
4.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place one disc of chilled dough on a lightly floured surface and roll dough with floured rolling pin to 1/4” thickness. Cut out shapes and place on parchment lined baking sheets, spacing 2” apart.
5.) Bake for 8-10 minutes, removing cookies to a rack to cool before rolling and cutting more. Be sure to keep your dough chilled between batches or it will become too soft to work with.
6.) When cookies are cool, frost and decorate as desired. I like to use royal icing with a plain, small piping tip like you’d use for writing on a cake.