To think making gingerbread is not as easy as Mary Berry makes it look?

[arghhhhreally]

My hands, arms, clothes and kitchen are now covered in a mixture of flour and sticky dough. Slightly deformed men in the oven as I type. Isn't this supposed to be a fun, easy, kids recipe?!

funny you say this as my 11 year old made it yesterday - the very same recipe, while I was out.

He put a lemon glace topping on it. it was AMAZING - really nice contrast between soft and crunchy, BUT the kitchen took ages to clean up and he had tried to do it the best he could. I had to scrap the dough off the work surface

My 9 yo DD made some yesterday while I was out too! so it can't be that difficult!

(Lowers voice to a whisper) I've always found this recipe from the dark side very easy...

Netmums gingerbread. You could always ice them with boobs and genitals to make then less mumsy

Mary Berry's been baking for longer than I've been alive.

I bet she could make baking gingerbread look easy even if she was doing it standing on her head or with one hand tied behind her back.

Oh I give up at the first hurdle and let the supermarket do them
For me.

Love Mary but she can cook and I frankly can't and don't want to either.

Tried to make fudge once. Took me half a day to clean the kitchen afterwards!

I tried this, and I can bake pretty much anything.... but it was a disaster.

I just bought a huge box of heart shaped ginger biscuits from Tiger. Much tastier than anything I've been able to produce.

The kids are icing them as we speak

Men are out and actually look kinda cute in a sort of pudgy wonky way. Practice needed, I think.

I use Mary Berry's recipe, and it works just fine

Did you kneed it enough?

This thread gives me flashbacks to the time the children and DP went through a gingerbread-baking phase. It lasted for weeks and I doubt there was one splodge that came out edible. I'm getting indigestion just thinking about it.

I've been making the ginger bread house this morning with the 3yo who got bored after 20 minutes. This is the destruction of my kitchen...although they're just out of the oven and look better than expected. I'm just not sure I have the strength to decorate!

Good grief, it looks like an explosion

I know. I know. It's tidied now though (hence the second picture in the same spot).

I used a BBC recipe, not Mary. Had to guess a bit on amounts as well, as scale battery has died. Suspect I overdid the golden syrup as was really sticky, had to add loads of flour to be able to do anything with it.

That house is looking impressive!

Some recipes are just nightmares. I'm
known as 'someone who can cook' in my family and I stupidly made Mary's Devon scone recipe last year - utter disaster.

I make scones every couple of normally with no recipe as they're piss easy - why the feck did I think 'oh I will try this special recipe'

Esther Walker's Recipe Rifle blog has a good version. Made it with DD 2.3 and was great

Gingerbread in this house has 4 ingredients and my 2yo can manage it with help.

Cream 2oz sugar with 4oz butter. Weigh 6oz flour, remove 1tbsp and add 1tbsp mixed spice. Rub dry into creamed butter/sugar until it forms a dough

The more you work it, the more like playdough it becomes, it's basically shortbread with spice in

I used the Lakeland silicone house-shaped baking tray, and the recipe that comes with it.....it's completely foolproof!

That's gorgeous!

We had tears due to gingerbread last weekend

But I did ok last year! The recipe I use involves boiling it all up in a pot and a very satisfying baking soda foamy reaction.

I have had a gingerbread disaster this year. I make the same (Delia) recipe every year and build amazing houses with a little help from DC.

This year the gingerbread is all floppy and there was no way the house was going to stay up. DC decorated the ruins and are loving getting to eat it early this year. I have no idea what we did wrong. Tastes fab but is very very soft.