Eames Case Study gingerbread house recipe: messy but modern

December 3, 8:39 AMBaltimore Food ExaminerKit Pollard

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Eames Case Study House #8. For real (photo by ercwttmn) and not so for real (photo by Kit Pollard).

I believe that there are two types of people who like to do stuff in the kitchen: those who cook, and those who bake. I am not one of those who bake.

I love to cook. You want hors d'oeuvres? I'll give you hors d'oeuvres. Vegetables? Sure. Oysters? Absolutely. But ask me to bake, and I cower in fright.

So why, then, did I decide to make my own, from scratch, gingerbread house this week? Your guess is as good as mine. For whatever reason, I decided that a traditional, from a box gingerbread house wasn't good enough for the Pollards. I needed to make my architecture-student sister proud. I'd design my own template and make a gingerbread replica of the Eames Case Study House #8.

I'm a big fan of mid-century modern architecture and design, and especially of Charles and Ray Eames, so it seemed like an obvious choice. Plus, my thought process was this: "The house is really just a box. How hard can it be to build a box out of gingerbread?"

Famous last words.

I started the long, arduous process last week, with some online research. I found a lot of pictures of the Eames house (though none that were completely clear), and I was impressed by this version of the house made out of chocolate (by a professional, I must point out).

My kitchen island, mid-decoration. Dixon is unhappy that he's not allowed to touch anything. Photo by Kit Pollard.

In addition to what I found online, my sister sent me some images she had from school. Armed with all of these pictures, I made myself a sketch of what each side of the house should look like, and I decided on a scale. My house would be 6 inches tall and 14 inches wide. that was my first mistake. It was an easy scale in terms of designing the template, but way too close to the size of my cookie sheets - I should've made the house smaller.

For the gingerbread, I again did some research, finding this recipe and sort of combining it, on the fly, with this one. The end result (below) wasn't too bad, in terms of taste or usability, but the fact is, I'm just not a very good baker, so my sheets of gingerbread weren't perfectly even in terms of thickness, and some of my tops and bottoms cracked a bit.

My decorating skills aren't terrible, but I'm not exactly Duff Goldman, either. I relied on icing cement (scroll down for the recipe) more than I'd like, but I was able to pull together a lot of different types of candy for the overall decor. I'm actually fairly proud of the Le Klint-like pendants I made out of Necco wafers. Maybe I have a future in design after all.

The back of the house is definitely the most aesthetically pleasing part (and yes, I know that's not saying much). Photo by Kit Pollard.

Gingerbread for a House

Makes about 4 12x15 sheets of 1/8-1/4 inch thick gingerbread.

Ingredients

•  1 1/2 cups whipping cream
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 2 tbs baking soda
• 1 tbs ground ginger
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 cup dark molasses
• 1/3 cup beer that's on the darker side (I used Sam Adam's Oktoberfest, but I've used Guinness before with good results)
• 9 cups all-purpose flour

Directions

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Line 4 12x15 cookie sheets (preferably rimless, so you won't have the problems I had) with parchment paper.

In a small bowl, whip the cream and vanilla until it softly peaks. Set it aside.

In a larger bowl (I used the bowl to my KitchenAid mixer), whisk together the brown sugar, baking soda, ginger and cinnamon. Beat in molasses, beer and whipped cream/vanilla mixer. If you have a standing mixer, like a KitchenAid, I'd definitely recommend using it - it'll be a lot easier.

With the mixer running, gradually add all the flour and keep beating until the dough is completely mixed. It'll be a little sticky.

Now comes the hard part (for me at least) - the rolling out. Here's what I did: I rolled out each sheet of dough actually on the parchment paper. That's hard because the paper slips around and I couldn't find a really foolproof way to keep it still, but it was still easier than trying to transfer the rolled out dough from the counter to the cookie sheet. So I did my best, mostly holding the paper in place with my stomach leaned up against the counter.

To roughly cover each cookie sheet, you'll need about 2 1/2 or 3 cups of dough. Roll it out as evenly as possible, and try to keep the surface of the dough as smooth as possible. I'm not going to lie - it's hard. It's also messy. By the time I was finished, there was flour all over my kitchen.

Once all four cookie sheets are covered in dough, place the sheets in the oven and cook for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes, pull the sheets out and, using your template, cut out the pieces of your house. Discard the remaining gingerbread (or eat it - that's what we did). Put the sheets back in the oven for another 5 or 10 minutes, depending on their thickness. You want the end result to be hard, but not crispy and brittle.

After the gingerbread is done, let it cool completely while you make the icing, develop your decorating strategy, and congratulate yourself on getting this far.