With Christmas right at the doorstep, it’s natural for families to start planning how they can spend happy times with their family. This season, Bangalore-based Shelza is making edible gingerbread house kits for anyone who’s keen on having their own gingerbread house to add to the festivities. Shelza’s kit comes with the board, baked cookie pieces, icing, candies, piping bags, an instruction sheet on how to assemble it all, etc.
“There are so many people making Christmas cakes so I decided I wouldn’t make those. And there are some who do the Christmas tree decoration kit etc., but I hadn’t heard of anyone doing gingerbread house kits,” says Shelza, who’s been a professional baker for the past 8 years. Incidentally, Shelza was into banking for 16 years before she decided to work with something that made her heart happy. And given her love for baking, her choice was natural. After getting a diploma for baking from the Lavonne Academy of Baking Science and Pastry Arts in 2013, she decided she was ready to move into the world of baking. And she did.
Shelza has been making the gingerbread house kits since 2020. The idea for the gingerbread house kit struck her when three students from Singapore approached her online to learn how to make gingerbread houses.
“They seemed so happy doing it, I began wondering about doing more of these. Many make their own gingerbread houses but no one made a kit for families. I thought it made for a wonderful Christmas family activity. So I announced the idea to my friends and neighbors; they liked the thought and placed orders.”
“I had mothers call and tell me how much their children loved putting the house together and then smashing it either on Christmas day or the next day and eating it,” she said.
Gingerbread tradition
Incidentally, the tradition of making gingerbread houses follows Grimm’s tale of Hensel and Gretel, which was published in 1812. In the original tale, the siblings were mesmerized by a “house built of bread, and roofed with cakes, and the window was of transparent sugar”. It’s believed that German bakers started making small decorated houses from spiced honey biscuits and the bread in the fairy-tale house slowly came to be replaced by gingerbread. Today, gingerbread houses are made for the festive season, with many storing the house until the New Year’s to then smash it and eat it up. The breaking of the gingerbread house signifies leaving old things and ‘breaking’ into the New Year.
Though the houses do last long, unless the gingerbread house is stored safely away from dust and grime, it’s best not eaten after smashing it around New Year time. “Of course, if you’ve put it together on Christmas and kids want to smash it that day or in a day or so, go for it! Have fun with it, and I hope you enjoy the cookies and frosting and all,” says Shelza with a giggle.
