Gingerbread House (from scratch)

Gingerbread House

A gingerbread house  is a Decorated house, made of gingerbread-cookie dough, cut and baked into appropriate components like walls and roofing. The cookie dough is that f gingerbread. And all decorations are edible like icing and candies. The whole process of baking the components for the house and then building it and then decorating are wonderful elements of the Christmas tradition. As a child, I would always wait for the candy cane or peppermint swirls that decorated the Gingerbread house.

The tradition of making decorated gingerbread houses actually started in Germany in the early 1800s. German bakers began baking ornamented fairy-tale houses of lebkuchen (gingerbread). These became popular during Christmas, a tradition that came to America with the Pennsylvanian- German immigrants.

You can also use this dough to prepare Gingerbread Men. I provided another recipe for Gingerbread Men here, which is eggless. For the Gingerbread House, I believe the recipe below (with egg and molasses) is better to prepare a strong house.

Scroll down for the Complete Recipe.

Gingerbread House

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Watch the Video or click to read Complete Recipe – Below. 

How to make a Gingerbread House – Recipe at a glance:

• Sift dry ingredients. Beat sugar, shortening, and egg till pale. Combine with sifted ingredients and milk, till a dough is formed.
• Chill for 1 hour.
• Roll out and cut using Gingerbread house cutters or a homemade stencil.
• Bake for 10 minutes. Cool and then assemble using Royal Icing.
• Royal icing is made from Icing sugar and Meringue powder. Meringue powder is used instead of egg whites.
• Use plenty of icing to ensure the house is cemented together. Walls, to the floor and the roof. I have used homemade sugar caramel to glue the gingerbread house, but it is hard to bite- if you are going to eat the gingerbread later. For purely decorative purposes, you could try it!

Ingredients:

• • 3 cups  All-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp Baking soda
• 1/4 tsp Salt
•  1 1/2 tsp ground Ginger
• 1/4 – 1/2 tsp ground Cinnamon ( I prefer 1/4 tsp to keep the ginger flavour prominent)
• 1/4- 1/2 tsp ground Allspice ( I prefer 1/4 tsp to keep the ginger flavour prominent)
• 1/2 cup Vegetable shortening
• 1/2 cup Sugar
• 1 Egg
• 1/2 cup Dark Molasses Sugar
• 3 Tbsp Milk

Royal Icing for gingerbread house::

• 3 Cups Icing Sugar
• 4 Tbsp Meringue powder
• 1/2-1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2-3 Tbsp water

Notes:

• Mix up the spice! Common spices used in gingerbread are ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice. Mace or nutmeg is also sometimes added. In my recipe, I use equal amounts of ginger and cinnamon. You can increase the proportion of ginger: cinnamon if you want the ginger spice to be more prominent. Taste the dough as you go to get the spice mix to your liking.
• Icing notes! Royal icing keeps in the fridge up to 3 weeks, and can be beaten again to suit your requirements. It acts as a glue to build the house and attach gummies and candy.
• Decorate! I decorated my gingerbread house with royal icing, candy, gumdrops, candy canes, and colorful sprinkles.  Be creative… it can be so much fun! It’s not about perfection here.  Get everyone to help with the decoration. It’s so much better that way and creates memories.

It is recommended that you open the recipe page and keep this page going if you like to WATCH / LISTEN to the video alongside the written instructions.

Key Ingredients: Flour, Sugar, Baking Soda, Golden Syrup, Spice, Vanilla extract, Royal Icing (Meringue powder and icing sugar).

EAT AND TELL!!! Let us know if you tried –  Gingerbread House (from scratch)