The Gingerbread House. When the Christmas holidays start getting close, one of my family’s favourite traditions is making the gingerbread house. We don’t buy those pre-fabricated houses either. We make ours from scratch. It’s a lot of work, yes, but it’s also a lot of fun. If your kids like to help out they’ll have a lot of fun with all the mixing, not to mention all the lollies lying around during the whole process.
Method
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First, mix all of the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.
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Mix the brown sugar with the butter using an electric mixer on medium. Once blended, mix in the molasses/syrup, water, and eggs.
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Pour half of the dry mixture into the wet mixture and blend it in smoothly, then mix in the rest of the dry mix.
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Knead the dough until it's all mixed well and then wrap it in plastic and set it in the fridge for between 2 hours to three days.
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Use a thin cardboard or thick paper to cut out templates for the house. You can find some unique templates online that you can use as guidelines.
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Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
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Divide the gingerbread dough into two pieces.
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Put down some wax paper and then sprinkle it with flour to make your rolling surface. Roll each piece of dough out to about 0.5cm thickness.
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Once it's rolled, if the dough is really soft you can put it in the freezer for about an hour to harden it for cutting.
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Sprinkle some flour on the dough, place the template pieces on top, and cut them out with a very sharp knife. If you cut all the way through the wax paper you can simply lift the whole thing onto a baking tray. If not, use a spatula. Keep all the pieces at least 2.5cm apart.
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Cook them at 180 degrees for about 15 minutes, or until they get darker. Watch the smaller pieces they'll cook faster.
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Beat the egg whites in a small bowl with electric beaters until frothy, gradually beat in the sifted icing sugar.
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Cover the icing with a damp tea towel until required.
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Line a cutting board with alfoil - this will be the base.
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Once everything is ready, put some icing into a piping bag. If you don't have one, you can take any regular ziplock or freezer bag, snip a tiny cut in the end, and fill it with icing.
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Take one edge at a time and squeeze a line of icing down the side. Connect it to its neighbouring piece and continue until everything is cemented together.
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Once the house is built, put the remaining icing on the roof and around the windows for trim.
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Decorate with lollies of your choice, and you're done! Any extra icing can be snow on the ground!
Recipe Hints and Tips:
- The Gingerbread House pieces are suitable to freeze for up to four months.
