Gingerbread house

For the past two Christmases and for Halloween last year, I’ve baked, assembled and decorated a gingerbread house.

I’d like to share my go to gingerbread house recipe.

You will need
Pinch of Salt
½ cup Syrup
¼ cup Butter
¼ tsp Baking Powder
2 tsp Cinnamon
2 tsp Nutmeg
3 tsp Ginger
1 cup Dark Brown Sugar
1 Egg
3 cups Plain Flour
Royal Icing in a piping bag
Various sweets

Method
Beat together the brown sugar, eggs, butter and syrup.

Add the dry ingredients and mix well to form a tick dough.

Wrap in cling film and put in the fridge to harden.

Meanwhile, cut out your templates or use cookie cutters.

Roll the dough on a lightly floured surface and place your templates on top.

Cut out the shapes.

Tip: I used square and rectangular cookie cutters to imprint the door and windows before baking.

Bake in the oven at 180°C / 160°C (fan assisted) / gas mark 4 for 15 minutes, until hard and leave to cool on a wire cooling rack.

Using a cake board, take one of the sides and pipe a strip of icing along the bottom and the edges. Stick to the cake board.

Repeat for the back wall and stick this to the side wall and the cake board.

Repeat for the other side wall and stick this to the back wall and the cake board.

Repeat for the front wall and stick this to the two sides and the cake board.

Leave in the fridge to set.

Pipe icing along the top edges of your house and attach the two roof slates, joining them together with icing in the center.

Leave in the fridge to set.

Now the fun part – decorating the house! 🙂

I’ve used piped icing, icing pens, sprinkles, sweets etc in the past and have made garden paths, figures and decorations from left over gingerbread dough, rolling icing, fondant or chocolate.

My first gingerbread house – made with Ali (Christmas 2012)

Christmas 2013

Halloween 2014

Christmas 2014