There are lots of steps to building your own gingerbread house; but decorating your mini home is lots of fun and well worth the effort!
FOR THE GINGERBREAD
150ml water
420g dark brown sugar
90ml treacle
90ml golden syrup
3 tbsp ground ginger
2 tbsp ground cinnamon
500g salted butter, cold and cubed
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1120g plain flour
FOR THE ROYAL ICING
2 sachets egg white powder
60ml water
450g icing sugar
FOR THE DECORATION
450g white ready-to-roll icing
450g white ready-to-roll marzipan
250 g red ready-to-roll icing (optional)
250 g green ready-to-roll icing (optional)
45ml honey
1 large cake board (for displaying your house)
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- Firstly, make the gingerbread. Place the water, dark brown sugar, treacle, golden syrup, ground ginger and cinnamon in a large saucepan.
- Get an adult to do the next step for you. Bring to the boil, stirring continuously. Once boiling, remove the pan from the heat and using a wooden spoon carefully stir in the butter until melted. Add the flour and bicarbonate of soda and stir until combined; the mixture will be quite runny.
- Double wrap the gingerbread dough in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours or until firm.
- Whilst the dough is in the fridge make the icing decorations for the house. If you’re using icing for your decorations, cut out small heart shapes using the red icing. To make the candy canes roll both red and green icing (on a surface lightly covered in icing sugar) to form 2 snake shapes about 0.5cm thick. Twist the colours around each other and roll on the surface. Cut into 4cm long pieces and shape into candy canes. Leave decorations to dry and firm up overnight.
- Once the gingerbread dough is firm, separate into 4 equal pieces and knead each piece on a clean surface dusted with plenty of flour. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas mark 4. Grease and line 3 baking trays.
- Roll each piece using a rolling pin dusted with flour until around 3/4 cm in thickness.
- Cut out the gingerbread house Template and use these to cut out the gingerbread using a small knife (ask an adult to help with this). Once all the templates are cut out there should be 2 shapes for each template, except for ‘template 4’ which should only have 1 cutout shape.
- Bake the gingerbread pieces for 15-18 minutes until the biscuit is firm to touch. While still warm, you may want to trim the edges of the house using the templates to get straight sharp edges. Leave to cool.
- Prepare the marzipan. Knead the marzipan until soft and pliable on a surface dusted with plenty of icing sugar. Roll out the marzipan to a thickness of 0.5cm. Place template 1 (front of the house) onto the marzipan and cut the marzipan to the size of the template. Repeat this for template 4 (the door).
- Once the gingerbread is cool, brush the front of the gingerbread house and door with honey. Place the marzipan onto the gingerbread and smooth into place with the palm of your hand.
- Roll the white icing onto a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar. Cut two pieces of the roof shape (template 2) and stick onto the gingerbread using honey. Leave all of your gingerbread shapes to firm overnight in an airtight container.
- For the royal icing, make up the egg white powder following instructions on the pack. Add the icing sugar to the egg white 1 tbsp at a time and mix well. Repeat until all the icing sugar has been added and the icing is thick, smooth and white. Place the royal icing in a piping bag and cut a small hole (0.5cm) in the end of piping bag.
- Once the gingerbread has firmed overnight stick the sides to the front of the house using a thick line of royal icing and hold together in place for about 30 seconds to keep it together. Add the back of the house using more royal icing and hold in place for 30 seconds. Add another line of royal icing around the base of the house and place on the cake board. Leave the house to set for about an hour. Then add the roof using the royal icing, hold in place for about 30 seconds.
- Add final finishing touches to the gingerbread house by adding candy canes, hearts and sweets to the walls using royal icing. Neaten the finish of the windows and roof by piping dots of royal icing around the edge.