Gingerbread House
This really does take about 3 days to do (and that's what all the recipes say) but we pushed it into a day and a half. We baked and build the house on the Saturday and decorated the Sunday. Next time (we are making this our yearly tradition from now on with the little one) I will bake the dough in sheets and cut out the shapes when I take it from the oven and the cookie is still soft. Then I will be sure the shapes are perfect as they tend to shrink and move while baking.
This recipe is enough for 2 houses and some gingerbread men.
- 360g butter, at room temperature
- 200g dark brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons lemon zest
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice
- 300g syrup
- 4 eggs
- 3 tablespoon mixed spice
- 3 tablespoon ground ginger
- 2 tablespoons baking soda
- 6 cups all-purpose flour
For the edible glue:
- 6 egg whites
- 1,5 kg icing sugar sifted
- Preheat oven to 180ºC.
- Cut out the following paper patterns for the gingerbread house template (I bought this Gingerbread House Kit).
- Cream the sugar and butter until fluffy.
- Add the eggs one by one and mix well.
- Add the sugar, zest and lemon juice. Mix until well combined.
- Meanwhile sift the flour, baking powder and spices.
- Add flour cup for cup to the butter mixture until a dough forms.
- Add the dough hook and 'knead' for a few minutes.
- Fold in baking parchment and rest for 1 hour in the fridge.
- Knead the dough until its elastic and roll it out to about 0.5 cm. (we did it at 0.25 cm and it was too thin).
- Cut out the shapes for the sides and roof.
- Bake in the oven for 15 minutes.
- Allow to cool and dry over night.
To make the 'edible glue':
- Beat the egg whites until peaks form.
- Add 1 cup of sugar at a time beating well.
- When all the sugar is incorporated, use to glue house together (it's like working with marshmallows but dries really hard).
- Allow to dry overnight.
Then start decorating the house using sweets, biscuits or whatever else you can think of. We used coconut as snow for the finishing touch.
Comments
Post a Comment