Marc rushed to the door. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
And without waiting for an answer he rushed through the house calling Peggy’s name.
Seth and Ethan’s Gingerbread House Recipe
Ingredients
250g/8¾oz unsalted butter
200g/7oz dark muscovado sugar
7 tbsp golden syrup
600g/21oz plain (all-purpose) flour
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
4 tsp ground ginger
For the icing
2 egg whites
500g/18oz icing sugar
Method
Heat the oven to 200ºC/180ºC fan/gas 6. Melt the butter, sugar and syrup in a pan. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ground ginger into a large bowl, then stir in the butter mixture to make a stiff dough. If it won’t quite come together, add a tiny splash of water.
Cut out a template. You can find these free online. Put a sheet of baking paper on a work surface and roll about one-quarter of the dough to the thickness of two £1 coins. Cut out one of the sections, then slide the gingerbread, still on its baking paper, onto a baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough, re-rolling the trimmings, until you have two side walls, a front and back wall and two roof panels. Any leftover dough can be cut into Christmas trees, or monkeys for the trees around your house.
Bake all the sections for 12 minutes or until firm and just a little darker at the edges. Leave to cool for a few minutes to firm up, then trim around the templates again to give clean, sharp edges. Leave to cool completely.
Put the egg whites in a large bowl, sift in the icing sugar, then stir to make a thick, smooth icing. Spoon into a piping bag with a medium nozzle. Pipe generous snakes of icing along the wall edges, one by one, to join the walls together. Use a small bowl to support the walls from the inside, then allow to dry, ideally for a few hours. Ask Christa to do this part as it’s really hard.
Once dry, remove the supports and fix the roof panels on. The angle is steep so you may need to hold these on firmly for a few mins until the icing starts to dry. Dry completely, ideally overnight, and then decorate as you wish.
31
‘You have to make the chicken house,’ said Seth to Ethan.
‘I can’t make the chickens,’ Ethan stated. ‘But I can make the eggs.’
Seth considered it for a moment. ‘Eggs could work. We can pile them over by the trees.’
‘What are you doing, boys?’ asked Avian as she came into the kitchen.
‘Making a gingerbread house,’ said Seth.
‘Gross. Make sure you don’t eat it – it’s bad for you,’ she said, taking a bottle of water from the refrigerator and leaving again.
Ethan said nothing as Avian left but Seth groaned.
‘I want Christa back,’ he said.
‘So do I,’ Ethan answered. ‘Mom said she’s going to make broccoli burgers. Disgusting.’
Seth made a face. ‘What if we made a maze?’
