Gingerbread house

cookingwithmykids

5 from 2 votes

Make some magical memories with your kids this Christmas and create your own homemade gingerbread house.

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Prep Time 20

Cook Time 10

assembling and decorating time 1

Total Time 1 30

Servings: 24

Course: Side Dish

Cuisine: American, British

Calories: 168

For decoration

4 boiled sweets
2 egg whites
500 g 4 cups icing /confectioners sugar
Sweets – we used 4 normal sized packets of Smarties and one large packet of Jelly Tots.

Preheat the oven to 180C / 170C Fan / 350F and line 3 large baking trays with baking paper.

Add the butter and dry ingredients to a bowl

Weigh the butter then chop it into small pieces before adding it to a large mixing bowl.
Weigh the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger, and add that to the butter.
Use your fingertips to rub the butter in to the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.
Measure the sugar, then add it to your mixture, give it a little mix so it is well combined.

Add the wet ingredients

Make the gingerbread dough

Finally, mix everything together, at first with spoons if you like, but then with your hands until the dough comes together in a ball.

Make the gingerbread house pieces

Sprinkle a little flour down on your work surface and then roll out the gingerbread until it is around 3-4 mm thick.
Lay the template over the top and cut around it. Pop it on one of your prepared baking trays. (You can find a link to our template in the recipe post).
Re-roll the left over gingerbread dough and repeat with the other parts of the house.

Create the windows

If you want to make some stained glass windows for your house, simply bash some boiled sweets (we did a different coloured one for each window) with a rolling pin or a tenderizer until you have a fine powder.
Cut out where you want the windows to be in the walls, and bake the walls as normal. A few minutes before the end of baking, re move the windowed walls from the oven and re-cut the window holes if need be then add the boiled sweets and bake for the remaining time.
Alternatively, you can add the sweets from the start of baking but the window edges may not be as sharp (like ours were).

Bake the gingerbread

Bake the gingerbread in the oven for around 9-12 minutes. It's ready when it's coloured a little and has hardened. Don't leave it in too long or it may become too brittle but equally if it is too soft when it comes out, pop it back in for another minute or so.
Remove it from the oven and leave to cool on the baking trays for a minute before putting it on a wire rack to cool completely.

Make the icing

Separate the egg whites from the egg yolks. Pop the egg whites in a mixer or large bowl and whisk them until they are light and fluffy.
Weigh the icing sugar and then add it a spoonful at a time to the egg whites. Turn the speed down before you add it or it will go everywhere!
Allow it to mix for a minute or two until it is well combined and you have a nice glossy icing.
Spoon half the icing into a piping bag fittted with a large nozzle and one, fitted with a small star nozzle.

Assemble the gingerbread house

Start with the walls, and using the icing with the large nozzle, pipe icing down one edge then press the two sides together.
Prop them up with a cup if you need to, then repeat with the other walls. Add some extra icing down the join in the middle for extra stability.
Leave the icing to dry for at least half an hour so it has set before adding more icing to the top of the walls and adding the roof.
Again, leave it to set for an hour or more to make sure it isn't going to collapse.

Decorate the gingerbread house

Using the piping bag with the small nozzle, pipe on some icing and decorate it with sweets.
I did, all the piping where my kids wanted me to put it, and they added the sweets, but you could let them do it all themselves.