Most recipes will tell you to refrigerate your dough, then roll it out and cut it. My suggestion goes a step further. Roll the refrigerated dough out into pieces the size of a baking sheet, put them on parchment or waxed paper, lay them on the baking sheet and freeze them. Using frozen dough will allow you to cut the intricate details out easier. When you pull the dough out of the freezer, quickly cut out the piece. Next cut your details using an exacto knife or a very sharp small knife. Gently hold down the pattern piece while you make your cut. I suggest dipping the back of the pattern piece in flour before laying it against the gingerbread to prevent sticking. Pull out unwanted pieces of dough after each cut. I usually use the tip of the knife to pull out the unwanted pieces. If the dough starts to soften up before you can finish all of your cuts, simply put it back in the freezer for a short while to harden up again. This is especially important when you are cutting out details such as a stained glass pattern on a church window. Since I work with frozen dough, I am able to lift the finished pieces and put them on my baking sheet without distortion but the dough MUST be frozen.

When making your gingerbread dough, you must decide whether you want a light or dark colored dough. If you want your dough to be lighter, then stick with using light brown sugar and/or light corn syrup. If a darker dough is your preference, then use dark brown sugar and/or dark corn syrup.

When making your gingerbread dough, select a recipe that doesn’t use any sort of leavening such as baking powder or baking soda. Use of a leavening agent will cause your cut pieces to puff up and distort while baking. The results will be heartbreaking if you took the time to cut a lot of detail on a piece. Most likely you will have to re-make the piece, wasting both time and ingredients. One recipe I can highly recommend is in the book “Gingerbread: Things to Make and Bake” by Teresa Layman and Barbara Morgenroth. Whatever recipe you select, always bake a “test piece” to see how the dough performs.

On Saturday October 3, 2009, the Girl Scouts of Frontier Council held their 4th annual “Dessert Before Dinner” fundraiser. This year the chefs had to work with the Lemonade cookie. My entry was a raspberry lemon bar cheesecake. The crust was made of finely ground Lemonade cookies, a bit of fresh lemon zest to bring out the lemon flavor and some melted butter. Once the crust was baked, I piped a small amount of raspberry jam on top and poured on a lemon bar cookie type filling. After that layer was baked, I added a white chocolate lemon cheesecake batter and baked it again. I finished it off by covering it with a thin layer of white chocolate lemon ganache. My dessert was selected as the “first runner up”. I was pleased it was so well received!

I was at work trying to come up with another filling idea for a project I was working on when I came across something on the internet that mentioned raspberry curd. It sounded interesting so I decided to search for a recipe. I found several that were similar so I took a bit from each to come up with the recipe I used. The ingredients were as follows:

• 1 cup raspberry puree, seeds removed
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 4 eggs
• 4 ounces butter
• a few drops of red food color

I combined my ingredients in a metal bowl and cooked everything over a double boiler until the desired thickness was achieved. As a side note, I use the same procedure for making lemon curd. After cooking, straining and cooling, I anxiously tasted my concoction. I found the flavor to be good but the texture was a bit grainy. One of my employees tasted it and told me the flavor was reminiscent of raspberry sherbet, though he agreed it was a bit grainy. He felt, however, that the good flavor overshadowed the graininess. When I have time to try the recipe again, I think I will cut back a bit on the butter in the hopes of reducing the graininess.