Google tells me that it's Ginger Bread Day - now who doesn't love Ginger Bread? Well I do. It brings back wonderful memories of childhood and Christmas time. So why is Ginger Bread day in June? I haven't found a gluten free gingerbread recipe that will hold up for making gingerbread houses, but gingerbread men - they work fine. According to my history DVDs gingerbread goes right back to the middle ages when the wealthy ate it - it was made from bread soaked in ginger and wine. They ate really tiny pieces and shared with very important guests - having ginger bread was a status symbol. So do you make gingerbread? Do you build gingerbread houses? Do you have them all year round or just at Christmas. Now I have an urge to raid the kitchen baking cupboards and make some. Here's my recipe and my children making them back when they were little
While I haven't personally made any gluten free gingerbread houses both Becky Excell (who I've followed for a couple of years now) & My Gluten Free Guide have recipes for them.
Back to the questions at hand... So do you make gingerbread? I don't think I ever have, at least not as an adult. To be fair I'm not a huge ginger fan when it's the main ingredient especially in sweeter items Do you build gingerbread houses? I may have as a kid but honestly can't remember Do you have them all year round or just at Christmas. Gingerbread men/people are found all year round but houses just during December for Christmas here in New Zealand.
A friend and I tried baking gingerbread to make houses back in the early 80s ... it did not go well. We gave up and took the kids to see E.T. at the movie theater instead. All three of my live-in grandkids decorated gingerbread men cookies/biscuits in preschool. We've built a lot of gingerbread houses from kits over the years. I love Ginger Snap cookies and love gingerbread cake made from a mix and topped with whipped cream or Cool Whip (faux whipped cream that doesn't "melt").
I love seeing your ginger bread pages Angela. So do you make gingerbread? Not very often. If I do it’s in December. Do you build gingerbread houses? If we build gingerbread houses we use graham crackers. Do you have them all year round or just at Christmas? Just at Christmas but I love the flavor of ginger cookies so maybe I’ll convince my daughter to make some soon.
We used to decorate the pre-made houses; however, the pandemic got me to bake my own. I found gingerbread doesn't actually taste like cardboard. I love making houses any time of year.
Oh, I just love this mix! We could make an 8 x 8 pan of it and finish the whole thing in one sitting! It also makes the most delicious cookies. There is a large German population near where I live and one of the bakeries makes spicy ginger cookies that are to die for. Luckily it is not only miles away from my house, but it takes a long time to drive there, LOL!
I have never really liked gingerbread, but it is my sister's favorite. My mom used to make the dough and we'd make gingerbread men as kids. I loved the gingerbread man book as a kid, so I had fun decorating the cookies and my Mom and sister ate them all. Lol. We used to buy gingerbread house kits to make with my kids when they were little too. I don't think they ever cared too much about eating the walls because they were so hard, but they loved decorating them and then eating the decorations off the house.
I made gingerbread cookies with my children a few times. I think we even made houses at least once. Definitely more than once with graham crackers instead of making our own gingerbread. I never bought one of the gingerbread house kits. I am kind of a baked goods snob, always preferring homemade. My kids didn't like gingerbread though so we made and decorated sugar cookies more often. I like gingerbread (cookies are my favorite sweet) and I think it would be fun to make a house again someday. I searched my photo files a bit and found that 2013 was our height of cookie decorating. That would be when my kids were 12, 10, and 7. Here are two our our houses from that year.
And that's why I rarely bake a gingerbread cake ... I'm the only one who eats it and I'll just gobble it down! I make an 8x8 pan of it too. I've never tried making cookies with the mix though. This is my GK ... then the decorated houses sit until after the New Year when I finally toss them in the trash ... they are more of a craft project than a baking project.
Seems like an odd time of year for Gingerbread Day but I do like gingerbread pretty well. We make gingerbread houses -- from the kits -- every year at Christmastime.
