The gingerbread houses of the Chernihiv confectioner Elena Zibert in 2021 were awarded the gold award at the Worldwide Cake International Virtual Edition COMPETITION. Every year in winter and spring he creates new collections of his works.
The winter gingerbread houses in Elena Siebert’s new collection are real masterpieces. And the taste and aroma of Christmas is special. It contains ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg.
About the winter collection of gingerbread houses Elena Siebert told in an interview with FACTS.
“One of the sources of inspiration is fairy tales”
— Elena, what is special about your new collection of gingerbread houses?
- There are houses that look like real ones. They have such details as an attic door, a chimney, stones instead of a porch, slate on the roof, a bench and a barrel next to the house … All this is made of gingerbread and icing (protein glaze), the windows are marmalade, and only slate is made of sugar mastic . There are also fabulous houses. By the way, fairy tales are one of my sources of inspiration. The most difficult work in the collection is the big red house. In it, through the windows you can see the Christmas tree and Christmas wreaths. You can even see the “plastered” walls. The house has light. Light bulbs and garlands illuminate the space with red, blue and green light.
How do house ideas come about?
– Books, films, cartoons, architecture inspire me to create… I walk down the street – I see a house with unusual skylights, I take a photo… And then I implement an interesting idea by working with gingerbread dough.
“New Year’s classic - a combination of red and green colors”
- Every year your houses become more and more perfect …
- It’s true. I recently developed my own facade glaze. I keep her recipe a secret. I can only say that one of the components is powdered sugar. Glaze is applied, unlike mastic, in a thin layer. My houses are colorful. There are sky blue, turquoise, pale pink, caramel brown … New Year’s classics - a combination of red and green colors.
- Of course, not everyone can create a gingerbread house, but many people want to bake delicious gingerbread cookies. Share a recipe?
- With pleasure!
gingerbread recipe
Pour 250 g of sugar into a saucepan with a thick bottom and put on fire. At the same time, boil 250 ml of water in another vessel. When the sugar begins to turn into caramel and becomes amber in color, stirring gently so as not to burn yourself, pour in the water. Then add 250 g of sugar again. And, without removing the pan from the heat, add 200 g of butter, a teaspoon with a top of soda, 0.5 teaspoon of salt, a mixture of spices: cinnamon - 1.5 tbsp. spoons, ginger - 1 tbsp. spoon, coriander, nutmeg, a mixture of peppers - 0.5 tsp each.
When we see that the butter has melted, remove the pan from the heat, add 150 g of flour to the mass and gently mix with a spatula. Then, when the dough has cooled, add 3 yolks and the rest of the flour. It is important that the dough is soft enough and does not stick to your hands. Then we wrap it in a film and put it in the refrigerator for 12 hours. Then, if necessary, we take as much as necessary. This dough can be stored in the refrigerator for up to a month.
We roll out the chilled dough, cut out the gingerbread cookies and bake for 8-12 minutes at a temperature of 180 degrees. The thinner and smaller the gingerbread, the less time it takes to bake.
And delicious!
See also: The most beautiful New Year’s gingerbread houses in the world: a recipe from confectioner Elena Siebert
Source: Fakty
