Gingerbread time!

Today I went over to my neighbour Wendy's place to make Gingerbread cookies with her and her daughter!

My mother created her own recipe for gingerbread when I was little. It is based on my grandmothers recipe, but has changed a lot since then. For one thing it doesn't go "add enough flour" or "kneed it until it feels right." But it also has a larger variety of spices (it's a secret recipe but I will tell you there are 9 spices in it!)

I make a couple of recipes every year. Since I was making it with Wendy, I used spelt flour to make it wheat free. I was surprised at the way that changed the amount of flour that I needed! When using AP flour, I usually need about 8-9 Cups, but with spelt I felt like I just kept dumping it in! I think we ended up using about 17cups of flour!!! One recipe did make a lot more cookies than usual but if I had know about the increased volume of flour, I probably would have doubled the spices! Well, good to know for next time!

We did use Royal icing (which Wendy is allergic to, due to the cornstarch) But it's really the only way to get things to stick together and it dries fast and well, and makes for beautiful lines and decorations!

The recipe isn't a secret so I'll pass it on:

Royal Icing

2 Egg Whites
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla/Water
1 Tablespoon Cream of Tartar
3-3 1/4 Cups Icing Sugar

Sift Icing sugar, mix in cream of tartar. Separate egg whites (you can use the yolks to make egg wash for your cookies) and mix in vanilla. Beat egg whites and sugar on high until smooth and bright white (about 3-5 min). Make sure to cover the icing because it dries really quickly!

Can be kept covered in the fridge for about 3 days.

Anyway we decorated them afterwards with the kids. I made the girls both a special kid's icing bags using a plastic zipper bag and an elastic. You squeeze all the icing to one corner of the bag and then zip closed and tie it close to the icing with a tie tag or elastic band. Then clip a small hole in the tip of the bag. This way the child can learn how fun it is to decorate without the aggravation of icing flying up out of the top of the bag :)

Wendy and used regular icing bags and round tips.

We had a great time!