Makes: 1 gingerbread house

Time required: 1.5 days … in 2-3 hour blocks

Difficulty: ★★★☆☆ …  – gingerbread itself is very simple … the more stressful parts are designing the template and waiting for the icing to set to hold the house together.

Inspiration:

Growing up, my childhood dream was to become an architect. I’ve always had an interest in buildings and construction (having studied Civil Engineering), so baking a gingerbread house was a very exciting Christmas project for me.

The inspiration for this gingerbread house? The French Provincial houses of the leafy Eastern suburbs of Canterbury and Kew in back home in Melbourne – featuring symmetrical proportions, steep roofs and a balcony. The Civil Engineering degree definitely came in handy when designing the house and roof dimensions and building a cardboard template.

Ingredients:

Gingerbread (for a house ~ W30cm, H20cm, D20cm in size):

• 500g butter
• 400g dark muscovado sugar
• 10tsp golden syrup
• 1.2kg plain flour
• 4tsp bicarbonate soda
• 10g ground ginger
• 10g cinnamon powder

Royal Icing (made in 4 smaller batches):

• 4 egg whites
• 1kg pure icing sugar

To decorate – free to use whatever candy you can find, however this is what I chose:

• maltesers as the rocks lining the side of the footpath
• pastille lollies for the ’tiled’ footpath
• rice paper sheets for the windows
• marshmallow snowman
• pocky sticks for the snowman arms
• sour strap candy for the garage door and Christmas tree stars
• almond flakes to line the ‘stone’ porch
• preztels for the balconies and driveway
• m&m Christmas lights
• chocolate wafer roof
• plain wafers for the corner detailing

Instructions:

Gingerbread:

1. Preheat oven to 200°C
2. Melt butter, sugar and golden syrup over low heat until all the butter has melted
3. Sift the flour, bicarbonate soda, cinnamon and ginger in a separate bowl
4. Stir melted butter into flour mixture to make a stiff dough
5. Divide the dough into 3-4 smaller batches and roll out to 1cm thickness
6. Tracing the cardboard template made earlier, cut out each piece of gingerbread
7. Cook in oven for 12 minutes until the edges start to brown
8. Remove from oven and allow to cool/dry to harden

Royal icing:

1. Stir together egg whites and pure icing sugar until the mixture becomes a smooth icing
2. Place the icing sugar into a piping bag fitted with a small round nozzle and pipe along the edges of the gingerbread (one piece at a time) to join the house together. Ensure the walls of the house are completely dry before placing the roof on top of the house

Decorate:

1. Use royal icing (resembling snow) to cover up the ‘messy’ corners and joints on the house
2. Also use royal icing to stick candy decorations to the house

Party time:

Whilst I had so much fun baking, building and decorating the house …. the most exciting part is definitely showing off your house to friends and then demolishing and eating the house.

I’ll admit that I was a little sad to tear the house apart, however we did enjoy snacking away at the gingerbread house on a lovely Saturday afternoon in the sun.

I’m already looking forward to designing and baking another gingerbread house next year! 🙂

 

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