How making a Gingerbread house can teach you patience

I am so attracted to different cultures and traditions. I love Asian, simple and minimalist lifestyle and clean-food, but I love also the exuberance of warmness and colorful, fabric, cushions and food from Morocco or India and I have been also in love for quite some time with anything Scandinavian from their amazing wild landscapes, fjords to their white -clean -natural design to their simple way of life and gastronomy. I really truly believe in these simple,natural, green cultures with a better respect for nature and other people than ours where “show-off” and materialism have a big part in our daily life and where everything goes fast, too fast with no time to reflect and pose.

Officially winter and the cold weather has entered Southern California and we are getting ready for Christmas and we are more inclined to enjoy a Northern lifestyle. We had such a hot summer it is now time to snuggle inside with a good book, firewood, and homemade food. We trimmed our Christmas tree on December 1st, decorated the house, filled the calendar of Advents/ Santa Claus house, our twin Elf on the Shelf visit our house every morning, our kids sent their letter to Santa, my daughter was even in our village parade with her Girls scout troop yesterday and we drink spicy or peppermint hot cocoas ( a lot )and I cook soups and stews.
Recently, I discovered the beauty of homemade gingerbread house. I fell in love instantly. I love the brown-warm cookie color with the bright white icing.The smell of gingerbread in the oven is pure bliss with a real a sweet/exotic/spicy scent. For the first year we decided to make our Gingerbread house from scratch. I designed the house like a real house on parchment paper and then cut dough following pattern design on parchment paper. The house walls/chimney were glued with sugar/caramel. First you need to bake the dough/ parts and then you decorate with icing, then you glue all the house parts.
A gingerbread needs time and patience… do not rush and enjoy the whole process. The result is pretty nice. I think.

Swedish gingerbread dough for cookies or house
Adapted from Delicious Days Blog

Prep time: 15min. (plus chilling), baking: 8-10min.
Ingredients (yield: four batches):
7 Tbsp molasses
8 Tbsp butter
7 Tbsp brown sugar
3 cup all purpose flour
3 tsp all-spices
1/2 tsp ground cardamon
1/4 tsp salt
1 large egg

In a small saucepan or pan heat molasses, butter and sugar, stirring every now and then. Let it boil moderately until all sugar crystals have dissolved. Let cool off .
In a large bowl mix the flour together with baking soda, spices and salt. Form a hole in the middle and add the egg as well as the molasses mixture and knead together with your food processor. Add a little more flour if the dough appears too sticky, you should be able to shape it into a ball. Tightly cover it with cling film and let rest in the fridge until firm.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Cut off smaller portions of the dough and roll it out on a slightly floured wooden board or nonstick silicone baking mat, then stamp out your desired cookie shapes. Bake on a parchment paper for 8 to 10 minutes or until they just start to get some color on the very edges.

Icing
2 cups Icing sugar
1 Tbs Lemon juice

Mix well. And place in piping bags decorate cookies or house.

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