Easy Gingerbread Recipe!

by Mia M.

Hello, beautiful humans and welcome to Christmas. Yeah, I know it’s pretty much August – but it’s bloody freezing over here in Melbourne so Daryl and I have decided to have Christmas to cheer ourselves up. You’re right, we are geniuses.

Today’s post is a Christmas staple: gingerbread. Oh, didn’t your mouth just water at the name of it? (If you’re like me and not a massive fan of gingerbread, then no. But let’s go with it, your girl’s trying for a vibe here.)

So pretty . . . so festive. (So not in season. At all.)

For a bit of background, this recipe came about as an initial experiment – firstly, could we make decent gingerbread? And then, once we did, would we have the actual motivation to decorate said gingerbread? Consider it, if you will, a first attempt at glory – yes, these are basic, easy-out gingerbread houses . . . but it is upon these mere foundations that we will dive in and build glorious gingerbread creations!

Yeah, nah, it’s probably not.

However, the basic principle is true: we were testing it out to see if we could nail the recipe. I do genuinely really like the finish of these houses – so, as a “lazy DIY gingerbread houses” recipe this definitely works.

In terms of taste . . . well, it’s definitely gingerbread. I’m not the right judge for it, but Daryl (as an avid gingerbread lover) was a massive fan of the recipe and ate pretty much the whole lot.

(Also, credit goes to Taste.com.au for this recipe. We tweaked a tiny bit, but it’s literally theirs.)

WHAT YOU NEED:

125g butter
120g brown sugar
125ml golden syrup
1 egg yolk
375g plain flour
1 tablespoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
10g icing sugar (optional – for dusting)

METHOD:

1. As always when you’re baking, preheat that oven to 180 degrees.

2. Mix the butter and sugar in a bowl until combined and smooth.

3. Add the golden syrup, egg yolk, flour, ginger, mixed spice and bicarbonate of soda.

4. Knead that shit into a dough.

5. Let it set for 30 mins in the fridge.

6. Roll out your dough and (if you’re smart) cut it into shapes. If you’re us, just chuck it in as one whole slab. What could go wrong, right?

(Honestly, Daryl. Christmas is for children.)

7. Place dough on baking paper-lined trays and pop in that preheated oven. Leave for 10-15 mins (whenever it’s brown).

8. If you like that really rustic easy gingerbread house look, take the dough out before it’s cooled and cut some shapes into it with a knife, then leave to cool. (Alternatively known as the “why didn’t we just cut shapes into the dough?” “dude, i don’t know” method.)

9. Once cooled down, dust with icing sugar. This makes everything somehow look 100x better and (for those of us who aren’t massive fans of gingerbread) makes it a bit sweeter on the tastebuds. (Although, if you aren’t a massive fan of gingerbread, I doubt you’ll be making this. But I digress.)

10. (Optional, but why wouldn’t you?) Stick your gingerbread houses in a jar for decoration! We used icing sugar at the bottom of ours to look like snow.

While this was just a first draft and, admittedly, not our best work – I still really like the outcome. If it were the Christmas season and we’d actually bothered to do it properly, I daresay we could’ve created something gift-worthy.

Well . . . I think that’s about it for today’s post. I do have more Christmas content coming up for you – but actually in the holiday months of November and December. I mean, you might get a boozy hot chocolate recipe from me soon, but alcohol is for every season, so that’s hardly gallivating round on Rudolph’s back singing A Fairytale Of New York.

Are you guys big fans of gingerbread? Would you try this recipe? And do you ever kind of randomly decide to celebrate Christmas partway through the year and want to share any stories? Let me know your thoughts down below!

Peace,