Personalised gingerbread decorations: a school market stall
Two hundred gingerbread stars, a name iced on every one, and a stall at the school Christmas market that grew into a season.
The first order came in on a Tuesday night, on the back of a school newsletter, for a gingerbread star with the name Maximilian on it.
Jo had not planned to run a stall. She had planned to bake a few personalised gingerbread decorations for her children’s teachers, the way she had every December since they moved to Dubai. By the end of that season she had iced well over a thousand names, sold out at a school Christmas market and a winter fair, and paid for three flights home to Leeds.
This is her season, told the way she tells it, from the oven at eleven at night to the last star in the tin. It is also a practical guide: how to make personalised gingerbread decorations that survive a Dubai December, and what it is really like on the other side of the table if you are thinking of taking a stall yourself.
Late October, 10.40pm
Two hundred stars and one question
Jo was thirty-nine, a teaching assistant, and the mother of Ella, nine, and Sam, six. Most evenings ended the same way: lunchboxes washed, uniforms laid out for the morning, and an hour at the kitchen counter that was hers. That October the hour went on gingerbread.
The teachers’ stars had gone out the year before, each one with a name iced across it and a red ribbon through the top. In October a mother from Sam’s class stopped her at the school gate. Her son had hung his teacher’s star on their own tree by mistake, and could Jo make one with his name on it. And one for his sister. And, if it wasn’t too much trouble, his cousins in Hamburg.
Jo said yes before she had thought about it, then went home and counted her baking trays. Two. She baked two hundred stars that week, mostly to find out whether she could.
The first week of November
Personalised gingerbread decorations, one name at a time
The baking turned out to be the easy part. The names were the work. Jo learned to take every order in writing, because a name said over the noise of the school gate is not a name spelled correctly. There were three Sofias that week, spelled three ways, and a Zayd who was very nearly a Zaid.
She practised on baking paper first, piping each name with a fine round nozzle until her hand stopped shaking at the capitals. Short names went across a star. Long names went on a heart, or across a gingerbread person’s middle like a sash. Anything over nine letters got a slightly larger cutter and a little more patience.
She iced at night, when the house was quiet, and left each batch to dry flat on the dining table until morning. The children were allowed to check their own names over breakfast and nobody else’s.
A Saturday morning in late November
A trestle table at the school Christmas market
The parents’ association offered her a table at the school Christmas market, a Saturday morning in the hall and on the field outside. Jo had one trestle table, a white cloth, a borrowed cake stand and a clipboard. Ella made the sign.
She laid the stars out by first letter, A at one end and Z at the other, because children look for their own name before they look at anything else. That turned out to be the best decision of the day. A five-year-old who finds his name on a gingerbread star does not walk away from the table, and neither does his parent.
The ready-made names sold by ten. After that the clipboard did the work: name, spelling, class, and collection the following Friday at the school office. Jo went home with an empty cloth and forty-six orders.
The week after
Cellophane, ribbon and a label on every bag
Packaging was the second lesson. A gingerbread decoration bought to hang on a tree has to get home in one piece first, often in the bottom of a school bag. Jo moved to clear bags just large enough for one star, closed with ribbon rather than tape so the name showed through the front.
On the back of every bag went a small printed label: the ingredients, a clear line about gluten, egg and dairy, and the words “Decoration first, biscuit second.” Some families ate theirs on Christmas morning. Most hung them for the season and kept them, which is the point of a name.
She kept a tin of broken stars on the side for tasting, which cost her nothing, and which sold more than anything she said.
Early December
Orders by WhatsApp, tins on every surface
Then the class WhatsApp groups found her. Grandparents ordering for grandchildren in three countries. A nursery teacher who wanted twenty-two names for her class. A family who wanted a star for the baby due in January, with the space for the name left blank.
Jo bought a wall calendar and wrote every collection date on it, and stopped taking orders for any day already full. She baked on weekday evenings, iced on alternate nights so each batch had time to dry, and stacked the finished stars in tins between layers of baking paper.
Dubai’s weather taught her something too. Royal icing dries well in an air-conditioned room and badly next to an open balcony door on a humid evening, so the balcony stayed shut until every name was hard.
The second weekend of December
A stall at the winter fair
A friend on the organising committee of a winter fair in a park had a vendor drop out and offered Jo the space. Her first stall among the Christmas vendors who do this every year was a different thing entirely: a gazebo, two tables, a string of lights, and a set-up time of seven in the morning.
The other stallholders were generous with advice. Bring weights for the gazebo legs, because the wind comes off the open ground in the afternoon. Bring a float in small notes and a card machine that has been charged overnight. Bring a chair, and expect never to sit on it.
The winter fair crowd was different from the school one. Fewer children looking for their own names, more adults buying for children somewhere else. Jo sold ready-iced stars with common names, took orders for the rest, and posted the last of them to grandparents on the Monday.
The same weekend, two o’clock
The chocolate problem
Jo had added a small line of Christmas chocolates for the fair: gingerbread stars half dipped in dark chocolate, and little boxes of chocolate Santas and trees made in a silicone mould at her kitchen table. They looked lovely at nine in the morning.
By two in the afternoon, December in Dubai had reminded her that it is still twenty-five degrees in the sun. The chocolate went into a cool box under the table, and one of each sat on top as a sample with a card that said “Ask, and we will open the cool box.” People asked. The dipped stars sold better than anything else she made that day.
The next year she kept the chocolates for the evening fairs and the indoor markets, and kept to gingerbread in the afternoon sun.
18 December, the kitchen again
What the stall paid for
On the last collection day Jo counted the tins, the bags and the orders, and the numbers did something she had not expected. After ingredients, packaging, the stall fees and the new baking trays, there was enough for three return tickets to Leeds. Not in business class. But enough.
They flew on the twenty-first. In the suitcase, wrapped in a jumper, were three gingerbread stars for her mother’s tree: Ella, Sam, and one that said Granny, which Ella had iced herself, slightly crooked, with the Y going downhill. It is still on that tree.
Jo has a stall again this year. The clipboard is new. The rule about taking every name in writing is not.
How to make personalised gingerbread decorations at home
You do not need a stall to make these. A batch for teachers, cousins and your own tree is a lovely job for a December weekend, and the children can help with everything except the hot trays. Our guide to Christmas baking with kids has more on keeping small bakers busy.
A firm dough. Use a gingerbread recipe meant for cutting, not for soft biscuits: butter, dark brown sugar, golden syrup or molasses, flour, ginger and cinnamon. Chill it for at least an hour, and roll it to about five millimetres so the decorations do not snap.
The ribbon hole first. Push a straw through the top of each shape before it goes in the oven, and again gently while it is still warm from the oven. A hole made afterwards cracks the biscuit.
Royal icing for the names. Icing sugar with egg white or meringue powder, beaten until it holds a soft peak. Pipe with a fine round nozzle, or a small piping bag with the very tip cut off. Practise the name on baking paper first.
Short names across, long names on a bigger shape. Stars suit names of up to six letters. Hearts and gingerbread people take longer ones. Write every name down before you pipe it, and check the spelling with the person who asked.
A full night to dry. Leave them flat, in an air-conditioned room, overnight. Humid air keeps royal icing soft, so keep windows and balcony doors closed while they set.
Store them like keepsakes. In an airtight tin, between layers of baking paper, out of the sun. Kept dry, a gingerbread decoration will last the whole season on the tree. Hang them high if you have a dog. If you would like a longer-lasting version, our guide to Christmas personalised gifts and keepsakes has ideas that will see out the decade.
If you are thinking of taking a stall
Christmas school markets are the gentlest start: a familiar crowd, an indoor hall and a morning rather than a whole day. Ask the parents’ association early, because tables are often allocated in October. A winter fair is a bigger step, with longer hours, an outdoor pitch and a fee to match, and the organisers will usually want to know what you sell, how you label it and whether you need power.
Ask every organiser what they need from food stallholders: many want an ingredient list and allergen labels on every item, and some ask for a licence. Take orders as well as selling stock, because the people who cannot find their child’s name on the table are your best customers. And keep your price list short and clear; a queue at a market moves at the speed of the slowest question. For the visitor’s side of all this, see our family guide to Christmas markets in Dubai.
Let’s sum up
Personalised gingerbread decorations are simple to make and slow to do well: a firm dough, a hole made before baking, royal icing, a fine nozzle and a full night to dry. The name is what turns a biscuit into a keepsake, so spell it right and give it room. Whether you bake twenty for teachers or a thousand for a market stall, the best ones end up on a tree in another country, a little crooked, and kept.
Questions about personalised gingerbread decorations
Kept dry and out of the sun, a gingerbread decoration lasts the whole Christmas season on the tree, and often longer in a tin. It is best eaten within a couple of weeks of baking, so if the family plans to eat theirs, say so on the label and suggest Christmas morning.
Usually humidity, or icing that is too runny. In Dubai, dry the decorations overnight in an air-conditioned room with windows and balcony doors closed. Beat the icing until it holds a soft peak before piping names, and thin it only slightly for filling larger areas.
For a school market, ask the parents’ association in early autumn, as tables are often allocated by October. For a winter fair, look for the organiser’s vendor application, which usually opens a few months ahead. Ask about fees, set-up times, power, shade, and what they need from food sellers.
Yes, with care. December afternoons in the sun are still warm enough to soften chocolate, so keep stock in a cool box under the table and display one sample of each. Evening fairs and indoor markets are kinder to chocolate than a midday pitch on open ground.
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The Setup Collective builds three Christmas rooms in Dubai each season, the Christmas Room, the Christmas Kitchen and Christmas Morning, then photographs families in them. Candidly: nobody gets told to tuck their chin in. Who we are
