How To Make Ginger Bread Without Wanting To Jump Off A Roof

A couple of weeks ago, the director of children's services at church sent me an email beckoning me to join the Presbyterian Women (PW) in baking ginger bread panels. They are to make houses with, at our Advent Festival.  There was some song-and-dance speech about how it is time for the younger PW to take on some of the responsibility of baking for events. BLAH, BLAH, BLAH!  Don't get me wrong. I love her and church and I do not want to shirk my duties, but I think older PW are more suitable to taking on baking duties for several reasons.

1. They probably don't have a preschooler hanging on their leg, while the other hangs from their neck, while they bake.  Baking requires being able to move and breathe for a successful outcome.
2. They probably have worse circulation than a constantly running mom of small children, so they don't mind standing in a blazing hot, baking hell.
3. They are more than likely retired and have more time to bake than a mom with a job, kids in school, after-school activities and 800 hobbies.
4. They probably are more prone to liking baking 36 ginger bread panels. Don't old chicks like baking? My great grandma would bake me a cake if I came over, while I sat and watched. On demand cake, I called it.

I could go on, but you get my drift here.  I am not trying to be agist, just realist.  I personally vow to make extra ginger bread when I am an old PW, so that a mom of the preschoolers doesn't have to play toddler bowling, while attempting to bake a ridiculous amount of ginger bread.  I did learn a lot about this process and how to make it better for other people who may have to do something this out of control.  What you will need:

*A pattern.
*Tubes of dough. (Don't even think you may be Superwoman or man and try to make your dough. Get real, OK? One tube made one house each, with its own little ginger bread man to live there.)
* A fondant roller. This takes the guess work out of rolling dough.  It automatically makes it 1/4 inch. The perfect size for this venture and any other "cut out cookies."
* The scooper/chopper thing with the blue handle in my pics.  No, I don't know what it is called. For REAL. My brain has no room for these types of details.
* Parchment paper. This will save on clean up and is of utmost importance in the keeping sane part of this lesson. Dough doesn't stick= you don't want to throw it into the pantry door, like my mom did to my ginger bread house, when I was a kid. (Does anyone know where Mr. Freud is right now?)
*Baking pans
*One thirst quenching drink, such as, water, juicebox, or 7-up.
*One beer
*One bottle of wine.
*At least a shot of liquor.

Roll the dough out until it doesn't squish any more, and place pattern pieces.  (Roll the dough between two sheets of parchment paper.  Remove the top piece and then place patterns to be cut out. )

Cut around pieces with the choppy thing or a knife. I like Mr. Choppy.

Keep the patterns on the dough and flip it over. Peel the parchment off and put pieces with pattern side up on pan. Leave room between the pieces for it to grow.   (I forgot to take pic of this part so it is imagination time.)  Then peel the pattern off and bake for 13 minutes at 350 degrees.  (The dough package says 7-12 minutes.  Ignore it.)

While the pieces are still hot, place patterns back on and use Mr. Choppy to cut pieces to the original size again.  The stupid things grow as baked dough will do.  GRRR!! Let cool and move to ever growing pile.  Throw the cut offs in ever growing heap, (see pics.)

This is the ideal rolled out dough. I actually fit all three pieces on one rolling.  I am too challenged to have done this every time.   If a piece didn't quite fit, I would just put more dough under the missing part and roll a bit more.  MAKE IT FIT!  HEHE!

Here are my original tools. Roller thing.  Mr. Choppy.  Knife.  Dough between 2 sheets of parchment.  7-up to stay hydrated.  (Juice boxed was slipped in by pre-schooler hanging on my leg and screaming. ) Scissor for cutting the pattern out the first time. 

After 2 rolls of dough, I changed my beverage selection. This is a good pic of the rolling of the dough between the two layers of parchment.

After roll 3 1/2 I switched to wine and fantasized about killing the dough. 

After roll 5, it is time to start doing shots.  My grandpa would have beat me with this dough roll if he knew I drank Glenlivet 18 to soothe vengeful baking thoughts.  See the pretty dough roll? Again I stress, DO NOT MAKE THE DOUGH!!  This cheesy white guy is so happy for you to use his dough.  I can't remember his name. 

All but one set of panels are here ready to get the heck out of my house.  They are all nice and uniform for building ease. 

This is what I did with my leftovers.  This is to avoid getting clubbed for wasting scraps, by ghosts of baking past.  A.K.A Great Grandma Coellen.  Never waste!!  Capiche? 

These are going to the island of lost cookies, never to be eaten unless some one comes to get them STAT.  I am already tempted to waste.  They are the  parts chopped off by Mr. Choppy.  I wonder if the beasties outside will eat ginger bread cast offs? I pretty much think squirrels will eat anything after they ate my jack-o-lantern faces.