Gala's Ridiculous Gingerbread Idols
[ 28 December 2007 ]
Clockwise from top left: Mary-Kate Olsen, Diana Vreeland, Little Edie, Amanda Lepore, Salvador Dali.
Tonight, I made gingerbread idols! (More fun than just making generic “men”.)
Key characteristics of each person:
Mary-Kate Olsen: Huge sunglasses, messy hair & duck lips.
Diana Vreeland: Lots of rouge & exposed hairline.
Little Edie: Turban & brooch, plus general worried expression.
Amanda Lepore: Big everything.
Salvador Dali: Major facial hair.
The photograph above illustrates why I’m a writer & not an illustrator… ! While it feels slightly sacrilegious to eat Diana Vreeland’s face (eek!), rest assured that this is a great recipe. If you’d like to have a go, here’s what I did.
Ingredients:
Melted butter — for greasing purposes
250g butter — at room temperature
100g (1/2 cup firmly packed) brown sugar
125ml (1/2 cup) golden syrup
1 egg yolk
375g (21/2 cups) plain flour
1 tbs ground ginger
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Plain flour — to dust
Food colouring — for icing (I also used a special writing tube of dark chocolate)
How to do eet!
Preheat your oven to 180°C. Wipe some melted butter over a baking tray, or just lay out tinfoil on an oven tray.
Beat up the butter & sugar in a bowl, until it is all creamy & superb. Add golden syrup & egg yolk. Beat it up some more! Stir in flour, ginger, mixed spice & the bicarb. of soda. Dust a surface with flour & knead the mix until smooth. Chuck it in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Make icing! I tend to do this by using 125g of butter & then just adding cups of icing sugar until it’s about the right consistency. The thicker the better, because otherwise you won’t be able to pipe it properly.
Roll the dough out & cut it into whatever shapes you like. Chuck it in the oven & give each shape a bit of space, because it groooows as it bakes! Bake for about ten minutes & yank ‘em out. They will be really soft but they will firm up later. Let cool.
Seperate your icing into a few bowls of different colours, then pipe on in desired fashion.
Devour! Miam miam.
Super-love & cupcakes,
Gala
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Wow, Gala, these are great! I bet they taste delicious ;)
OMG!! this is the EXACT same recipe got off the
net (taste.com.au?)!
And i made gingerbread shapes lolol not nearly
as fabulous as your idols tho hehe…
:-)
xx Em xx
Daiane — Yoooou flatterer! I think they look appalling but at least I tried, haha!
EmmaRose — Yup, that’s the one I used, too! I adapted the icing recipe though :>
Even on gingerbread, i don’t know that Amanda Lepore’s lips will EVER be big enough. But you’ve made them as big as aesthetically possible (As has she!).
xoxo.
Haha gala sugar you make me laugh, such great talent there.
Aw,these are precious! I totally love the Salvador Dali cookie. Thanks so much for posting this!
Hahaha those are awesome! And so funny! I thought it would be super easy to decorate our gingerbread house …. I was wrong! So so fun to make
They are sooo cute!!! I love the MK and the Salvador Dalí, his moustache is awesome!!
I’ve never had gingerbread cookies/men/idols before so it will be interesting if I decide to make them.
Kisses.
The best icing to decorate/draw with is Royal Icing.
3 Tablespoons Wilton Meringue Powder (or powdered egg whites)
1 lb. (4 cups) confectioners’ sugar (about 1lb.)
6 Tablespoons warm water*
This smooth, hard-drying icing is perfect for making decorations that last. It is also useful as a “cement” to fasten decorations together. Royal icing is edible, but not recommended for icing cakes.
* For stiffer icing, use 1 tablespoon less water.
**When using large countertop mixer or for stiffer icing, use 1 tablespoon less water.
Thinned Royal Icing: To thin for pouring, add 1 teaspoon water per cup of royal icing. Use grease-free spoon or spatula to stir slowly. Add ½ teaspoon water at a time until you reach proper consistency.
It’s what I use to make decorated gingerbread snowflakes.
Luv
Poochie
they are looking goood :D
not sure if you will notice but i added some pics of some cupcakes i saw on my travels before Christmas on to your facebook group :)
Ok, this settles it – you are a genius! LOVE IT! Good work, Gala, and have a fantastic new year…and come visit me in London!
some of them look very angry. Maybe because you’re going to eat them!
Put they definitely put a smile on my face.
My favorites are The Amanda and The Salvador. The Diana Vreeland seems vaguely sacreligious(sp?). LOL I do love her so!
Brilliant!!!! They look so yummy!! And I love how you playfully added the faces—great, artistically tongue-in-cheek touch. ;) hehe!! I just finished off the second of my gingerbread cakes, so I suppose I should break down and bake some ginger cookies… lol. Thanks for the inspiration to get a little silly with food. ;)
I really need to make some of those now!
Ooh! Someone make a Gala gingerbread! Heheheh.
Gala you have inspired me to cook a batch of my own. If only it wasn’t so hot to turn the oven on!
i love little edie’s worried expression! what a great idea for gifts :]
I make Gingerbread Mutants. I cut out the gingerbread men the way one always does, with a cookie cutter, and then alter them by adding an extra head to one or changing around the limbs.
Decorating them is more fun, though, as you can put a Cyclops eye or extra nipples on your Mutants.
Plus, if you really love gingerbread (like I do), you can serve ‘em for Halloween as well as Christmas!
I love love love making gingerbread men, although I tend to use shortbread as it’s yummier!
I recently purchased a set of 101 different cookie cutters, they have changed the way I bake!! I have all sorts of themes, like christmas ones, the alphabet, numbers, halloween etc.
I spelt my friends name out in Shortbread for her for her birthday, icing and candles made it a ‘do it yourself’ birthday cake, that was much easier to share!! :o)
Sunshine and Sparkles
xxxx
Gala, have you seen Ashlee Simpson’s latest video “Outta My Head”? It’s very Salvador Dali-ish…
I made little biscuit men for all my friends for christmas last year :)
I customised them for each person to make them amusing: I made a leprechaun for an Irish friend and angels with wings and so on. They make good cheap gifts! I won’t pretend that they didn’t take hours though :P