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Gingerbread 101

Posted: Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

Hello Everyone!

Okay, so what I learned today is that I’ve been doing it all wrong when it comes to gingerbread construction. I guess that’s why the walls always come tumbling, crumbling down…

I spent the morning with a trained pastry chef from the Cordon Bleu Culinary Arts Institute and here are his tips for a better build…

If you buy one of those pre-made kits from the grocery store that you take home and assemble... dump the icing out of the ready-made piping bags and add more icing sugar and lemon juice to it. It’s often way too hard to spread along the edges and not nearly sticky enough to hold up the walls and the jujubes…

Mix it in a bowl and lift the spoon, if it drops off the spoon in a big lump, it’s still too hard… It should hang off the spoon in a “V” formation – then you know it’s the right consistency…

Also, when you’re in decorating mode, it can take a while to comtemplate your candy creation, so don’t just leave the remaining icing sitting in the bowl – it will get too hard to work with again… cover the bowl with a moist towel to keep soft.

If you still want to leave it to the professionals and just buy an unbelievable gingerbread house to display in your home over the holidays, head to the The Bay west bridge this weekend at the Rideau Centre and place a bid in the annual CMHC, Habitat For Humanity gingerbread challenge. It’s a silent auction of all kinds of amazing gingerbread houses made by organizations around the region and the winning bids get to take them home. All of the proceeds also go to Habitat for Humanity to build homes in our area.

More details on the competition at www.habitatncr.com.

If you’re like me and you’re interested in chocolate, cake decorating and food in general… the Cordon Bleu offers so many different cooking classes you can take and learn tips and tricks from the trained chefs who have worked all over the world. They truly are talented and you will be fascinated with what they can do with food!

They also offer a ladies night 2 Tuesdays per month where you can go to a class, learn to make beautiful tasty little canapés together, then off you go to the bar to enjoy those creations with some martinis! Fun! I think the girls of A television are going to take part in one of those evenings!

You can get more info on the classes or on gift certificates for someone you know to take a class at www.lcbottawa.com.

Trust me guys, you’ll score big points with the ladies on that gift!! J

Have a great day!

Angie