Published: November 28, 2007 12:22 am            

Welcome to the world of gingerbread houses

Sisters Morgan and Erin Sperry never guessed stepping up their annual gingerbread house tradition would land them in the Wenham Museum north of Boston.

But to the Hamilton girls' delight, that's exactly what happened this holiday baking season.

"I think it's really exciting that I made something in a museum," Morgan, 12, said. "Not a lot of people get to experience that."

Roughly two dozen amateur and professional gingerbread house designers entered their confections in the Wenham Museum's inaugural gingerbread contest and silent auction.

"We wanted to do something where people in the community could participate and express themselves artistically," said Mary McDonald, museum education director.

"We always make a gingerbread house every year from a kit," Morgan said. "So, I asked my mom if we could do (the contest). And, of course, because I was doing it, my sister wanted to do it, too."

The project took a full weekend of baking and making at the Sperry residence. Morgan, who has been cooking independently for three years and helping her mother in the kitchen much longer than that, spearheaded the project.

Morgan found baking the gingerbread from scratch as opposed to using a kit "really neat," and said the finished pieces "looked a lot better than store-bought." Nine-year-old Erin, meanwhile, loved painting the gingerbread with colored icing.

"We had little gingerbread characters, and I loved drawing faces and putting clothes on them," Erin said.

The girls started the whole project by designing their gingerbread visions on paper. Morgan decided on a Christmas cabin, while Erin designed a festive barn "because me and my sister ride horses and really like horses."

With the help of their mother, Cricket, they made patterns from cardboard to serve as guides for how to cut and bake the pieces of their gingerbread dough.

Morgan then searched for a gingerbread recipe on the Internet, settling on one with molasses, ground ginger and spices. She decided to double the recipe - since they were making two houses - and did a test run by baking a single gingerbread cookie, monitoring whether the results would be sturdy enough for construction.

"I made the dough myself and my mom watched me," Morgan said.

It wasn't until after they were finished baking that they realized they forgot to add the oil to the recipe, which made for a stiffer cookie.

"So we just made sure we greased the cookie sheets really well," Morgan said. "The gingerbread wasn't as hard as the kits (we used in past years), but it held up."

Morgan got creative by trying her hand at making stained-glass windows using hard candy she smashed into tiny pieces.

"I cut a one-inch-by-one-inch window and I put in the unbaked dough," she said. "I had no idea how it was going to come out, but it came out well. All the candy baked right into the cookie itself."

The project, Morgan said, required patience. As they watched their gingerbread pieces bake into all different shapes and sizes, the sisters learned that each piece didn't have to be perfect for their houses to come together.

"I was kind of nervous about how the walls and roof and everything were going to stay together," Morgan said, "but we just filled in all gaps with icing and just covered up all the imperfections with decorations."

Cricket Sperry made the royal icing "because it required egg whites and confectionery sugar," Morgan said. But the girls added the food coloring to the sugary goo. Erin painted her barn with red icing and used blue for the pond, and both sisters used white icing to hold the gingerbread pieces in place.

The girls were excited to show off their finished houses at the Wenham Museum as well as check out the creativity of the other gingerbread designers. Erin particularly treasured the bonding time the weekend gingerbread project provided.

"It was really fun, because I was working next to my sister the whole time," Erin said. "We were sharing ideas and saying, 'Yeah, you should do that' or 'Maybe we should do that next year.'

"It was so fun working with my sister and playing and making gingerbread houses together."



Emily Young writes for The Eagle-Tribune of North Andover, Mass. E-mail her at eyoung@eagletribune.com



Morgan's gingerbread tips

Remember to use all the cooking ingredients.

Don't be upset if the gingerbread doesn't bake the way you thought it would.

Don't be afraid to experiment. Taking risks is good. Even though something might turn out terribly, there's also a chance it'll be really good.



Erin's gingerbread tips

Nonpareils are great for stones and walkways.

Gum looks really good as shingles.

You can create a lot of things with pretzel rods.

Tootsie Rolls are good for making wood in a fire.



Delectable decorations

Here are some of the candies and embellishments Morgan and Erin Sperry used to make their gingerbread houses:

Doublemint Gum for roof shingles

Tootsie Rolls for logs in a fireplace

Pretzel sticks for a fence

Coconut for snow

Starbursts and hard candy for presents

Sugar cones for trees

Nonpareils for walkways

Other: Mini marshmallows, Laffy Taffy, licorice black bears, candy canes and royal icing





Gingerbread

Morgan and Erin Sperry of Hamilton, Mass., used this gingerbread recipe they found on the Internet to construct their houses.



1 cup molasses

3/4 cup lard or oil (The Sperrys accidentally omitted the oil, which perhaps made for a stiffer batter.)

1/2 cup hot water

2 eggs

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 heaping teaspoon ground ginger

6 to 7 cups all-purpose flour, more or less as needed

Combine first four ingredients. Rinse molasses out of cup with the hot water. Add the eggs and mix to blend well.

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix.

Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm.

Roll out dough and cut with cookie cutter.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.

        

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