By Lauren Wanko
Correspondent
5-year-old Isabella rolls up her sleeves and gets ready to work on a gingerbread house at The Cake Boutique in Mullica Hill.
What does she like so much about gingerbread houses? “Because you get to decorate them!” she exclaimed.
Isabella’s Godmother, Alexandra Benas, owns the Gloucester County bakery. At this time of year the smell of gingerbread fills the kitchen.
“It’s so creative and you’re using just all different parts of your brain to really figure out what looks best,” Benas said.
Gingerbread houses start with gingerbread. The Cake Boutique mixes flour, butter, brown sugar, spices, molasses and water until it reaches a dough consistency. That sets in the refrigerator overnight. The next day bakers roll out the dough and cut out pieces of the house. Next it goes in the oven.
“With cookies and cakes, things like that, sometimes you want it to be an underbaked side,” Benas said. “With gingerbread it’s the opposite. You want to make sure it’s baked through and a little overly done so that your structure is sound.”
The gingerbread typically expands a bit after it’s taken out of the oven. Benas trims the sides so it’s all even and adds crushed jolly ranchers for stained glass windows and pops it back in the oven.
“Then you just have to let it set,” she said. “I usually let my gingerbread set overnight completely and utterly dry and cool.”
The royal icing is the glue of sorts. It holds the house together and is made with powdered sugar and egg whites.
“Consistency is so important when you’re dealing with royal icing. You want to get something called a soft peak,” Benas said.
That’s added to a piping bag and the decorating begins.
The Cake Boutique says gingerbread houses have become so popular here during the holidays that they started offering classes. This year they even added another class. Staffers prepared about 50 gingerbread houses for kids to decorate.
This baker says that it doesn’t really matter what the gingerbread house looks like. It’s about creating life-long memories during the holiday season.
“I think that’s what we’re all looking for is really just to connect with our family and just do something fun,” Benas said.