April 8, 2023 - 6:33pm
Why is gingerbread the only dough used for building?
I was watching the Great British Bake Off and the contestants were building various baked structures. All but one used gingerbread. The only one who didn’t had her hobby horse collapse. It got me wondering, what is it about gingerbread that makes it so good for building? More to the point, why couldn’t you make the same dough without the ginger and other spices? Use some other flavoring, I mean. Do the spices somehow contribute to the hardness and strength of the dough? I wouldn’t think so, but then why don’t you see other doughs used? Or do you, and I’ve just never noticed?
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used for building but they don't smell as nice or are as convenient as gingerbread. Spices and all not needed for strength. What is needed is a low hydration dough (in gingerbread it's eggs) with a fair amount of sugar and stability. Winter dryness provides stability too. Raise the ambient humidity and crispy gingerbread will wilt and buckle under its own weight. Spices can eventually turn the snowy white frosting yellow or cream colored.
I once built a gingerbread tourist bus for a shop window. It was fine until April when humidity rose and the bus sat down on flat tires. Sides and top sagged in too. Lol. Gingerbread has to be baked long enought to set up hard when cool. It has the ability to set up quickly and should it become too brittle to cut, it can be warmed up again in the oven to make further cutting easier. Cut while hot. Good to have a pattern made ahead of time.
Wheat doughs will stay soft until completely dried out. An important time factor when in competition. Rye gingerbread would get assembled sooner.
Check out Chapter 10 Decorative and Display Projects in Jeffrey Hamelman's BREAD book. Also "dead dough" or "Pâte Morte" which tends to be a dough made with sugar syrup and flour. Used for decorating, mostly as coils woven together imitating cane. Worked while soft and then draped over a form and baked as opposed to dough baked first then cut.
Using a rye flour is key for strength. It has been a building material in real houses for thousands of years. Once dry, rye dough is very hard, baked or not.
It expands less in the oven and shrinks less while drying.