Gingerbread People

I developed an interest in cooking and baking as soon as I was able to read. I still remember my first attempt at baking a simple cake. The recipe was for something called Lightening Cake with which my mother agreed to help me when I was six or seven. The results were anything but light, but I was proud of the fact that I had actually produced something edible. My grandfather, Eugene, with whom we lived, worked at a Jewish bakery called "The White Palace" on 11th Street in Logan, and what I had made didn't compare to the delicacies that would often be dropped off warm in brown paper bags by the bakery's drivers early in the morning.

When I was in my teens, I was a regular reader of Clementine Paddleford, who had a weekly food column in the back of a magazine in The Philadelphia Inquirer. I still have a collection that I treasure of the recipes of Florence Hanford who had a cooking show on television that I watched religiously years before I first began watching Julia Child. For one of my early teen birthdays, I requested, and received from my parents, the initial monthly offering of the Time/Life Series, Foods of the World, through which I began to live the fantasy life of the armchair traveler through food.

To get back to gingerbread, the cover of the "Cooking of Germany" cookbook was graced with the most gorgeous gingerbread house I had ever seen. From the time I first laid eyes on it, I longed to re-create it, and when my sister and I first began our catering business and had small children at home we decided to do just that. We not only made one, we made three, one for her to keep, one for me to keep, and one for all of us to eat at Aunt Ruth's yearly family Chanukah celebration. Seeing it perched on my mantelpiece, a neighbor asked me to make yet another for her family and I believe I charged her $75, quite a sum at that time. Since then, I have scaled back my efforts on the houses themselves as my grandchildren are really more into the decoration.

This gingerbread recipe is not technically gingerbread because it contains no ginger, but it is delicious nevertheless. I have reduced the amount drastically of baking powder called for in the original recipe because there was always a trace of a metallic flavor in the original. Besides making gingerbread men and women, years ago, I began making gingerbread teddy bears. I even made gingerbread red heifers for a Bible-study group. Eventually, when craft stores began to carry markers made with food coloring, we graduated to cookies frosted with thinned royal icing, the better to use them like coloring books. Little fingers are much more nimble at placing tiny decorative candies into the small dabs of royal icing "glue." Depending on how thin and crispy you want your cookies to be, this recipe makes dozens of cookies.

Gingerbread

• 3/4 cup honey
• 1-3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1 Tbsp. finely grated lemon peel
• 6 cups all-purpose flour (Ceresota or Heckers)
• 2 Tbsp. double-acting baking powder
• 1-1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp. ground cardamom
• 1/8 tsp. kosher salt
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• Non-stick cooking spray
• Food-color markers and candy decors for decorating
• Food coloring if desired
  

In a heavy 4- to 5-quart saucepan, bring the honey, sugar and butter to a boil over high heat, stirring with a large spoon until the sugar is dissolved and the butter melted. Remove the pan from the heat and mix in the lemon juice and peel. Cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile, sift flour, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom and salt together into a large mixing bowl. Beat in 2 cups of the flour and spice mixture. Mix in the egg and egg yolk. Then, beat in the remaining 4 cups of the flour and spice mixture. This will make a very thick, crumbly and sticky dough. Flour your hands lightly and knead until the dough is smooth, pliable and still slightly sticky. Do not refrigerate.

Roll out to desired uniform thickness on well-floured pastry cloth with a stockinette-covered rolling pin. Cut out desired shapes as closely together as possible to avoid re-rolling as much as possible and place on non-stick coated cookie sheets. Bake in preheated 325°F oven, about 7-8 minutes for convection and 10-12 minutes for standard.

When cool, use a pastry bag with a #2 or #3 plain tip to decorate with lines of royal icing. Allow to dry for a few hours if you intend to frost cookies completely. Thin some royal icing to desired consistency for frosting with a few drops of water at a time until a ribbon of the icing dripped over the top melts and disappears into the icing at the end of ten seconds. If you accidentally thin it too much, you can thicken it with a few spoonfuls of confectioner's (powdered) sugar. The right consistency is absolutely essential to avoid frustration, so take your time and get it just right before loading the decorating bag. Add food coloring as desired. The thinned icing can be loaded into a disposable plastic decorating bag without any couplers or metal tips. Just be sure to snip a very tiny hole in the bottom of the bag once loaded. Cookies, once frosted, should dry for at least 6 hours, preferably overnight before using food color markers. Attach tiny decors with small dabs of unthinned royal icing.

Royal Icing

This icing, which hardens rock solid, was once made with raw egg whites. Years ago, when salmonella became a problem, I switched to using Wilton meringue powder.

• 1 lb. confectioner's 10x (powdered) sugar
• 3 Tbsp. Wilton meringue powder
• 6-10 Tbsp. warm water

Beat at low speed of electric mixer for 7 to 10 minutes.
Makes approximately 3 cups.