Gingerbread House Tutorial - Royal Icing.

Part One - Making Gingerbread.

Part Three - Construction

Patience and more patience is the key to making gingerbread houses.  Give yourself a generous amount of time to allow the royal icing (the glue) to set.

Making Royal Icing.

Ingredients.

• 1 Large Egg White
• 450 grams / 1 lb PURE icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon Lemon Juice
• glycerin (I don't use this)

** Make sure you use PURE icing sugar and NOT a icing mix.  Icing sugar mixes contain other ingredients and when used wont set.

Method:

• Make sure your bowl and utensils are dry
• Separate the egg.
• Beat egg white till soft
• Slowly add icing sugar and beat well between each addition.
• When you have a thick mix
• Add in the Lemon juice.
• Continue adding sugar until your icing holds it's peak.  It should be quite thick but not dry.  It needs to hold a stiff peak.

Next 

• Gather your ideas.  I have kept photo's of past houses, magazine cut outs, Christmas cards, Advertising mailers etc and Google has some great images.

Ready to decorate

• I used to use a material icing bag but don't anymore.  The egg white tends to ooze through the material and make your hands very sticky.  I now use a plastic icing bag with my icing nozzle.  
• When setting icing aside cover it with a damp tea towel or else it will dry and set.

Making roof tiles.

• 1 pack of wafer biscuits.
• Cut the wafer in half 
• Separate the wafer to make thinner tiles.

• Cover the roof section with a thick coat of icing.
• Stagger the tiles on the roof section.

Completed roof sections

Decorate:

• Stock up on lollies and decorate the side panels
• I used mini M & M's

Now wait for the icing to set rock hard.

Blessings

Ginger Bread House Tutorial (PT 1)

Part Two - Royal Icing.

Part Three - Construction

I first made a ginger bread house about 15 years ago and had so much fun doing it !  Since then I have made a few for friends and family.  I have also had a few disasters.  So I decided I would share a few of the things I have learned along the way.

If you don't have a pattern you can go to Gingerbread House Heaven there are some fantastic templates available from their site.  Start simple and once you get the hang of the basic method move to something more complex.

My recipe and templates are from this collection.  I photo copied the patterns for long levity.

One day I wanted to make a smaller house so I used a photo copy machine and downsized the pattern.  This is the result.




Ingredients:

• 75 grams / 3 oz  butter
• 4 tablespoons treacle
• 4 tablespoons syrup
• 100 grams / 4 oz soft brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons cold water
• 450 grams / 1 lb flour
• 1 tablespoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1 1/2 tablespoons ground ginger
• 1 tablespoon ground mixed spice
• 1 beaten egg

Method

• Combine butter, treacle, syrup and sugar in a pan over LOW heat.
• Stir till butter melts and sugar dissolves.
• ** Do NOT boil or over heat this makes a soft toffee which in turn makes your dough tough.
• Set aside to cool
• Add water and beaten egg.

• Combine the dry ingredients.
• Make a well and pour in the melted butter mixture.
• Mix well.

• Use your fingers to gather the dough into a ball.
• It should be a soft pliable ball.
• Let it stand for 15 min
• If it is too soft or sticky work in a little extra flour.

• I roll my dough straight onto the back of a cookie baking sheet.
• A lot of recipes say roll onto baking paper then place on baking tray.  I tried this and found that the pieces warped and never lay flat.
• I sprinkle flour straight onto the back of my tray and roll
• ** Do NOT use spray and cook or butter or oil !  This makes your ginger bread soft and it will not crisp up and in turn not retain it's structural integrity.
• It needs to be around 3 mm / 1/8 inch thick

• Preheat over to 190'C / 375'F / gas 5
• Bake for 8 - 10 minutes until puffed up and dry.
• Leave till cool enough to handle.
• If my pieces stick I use a sharp knife to lift them off.
• Cool completely on a rack.
• Cook like size pieces together.  If you cook large and small bits together the larger pieces will be undercooked and smaller bits over cooked.

As you can see I managed to chip off a corner.  I will "glue" this back with royal icing when putting it together.

With the left over dough I made gingerbread men for Sir N to decorate!

Happy Baking
Blessings

This post is linking to:

• Food Friday at The Singing Sparrow,   
• My Christmas Breakfast at Comfy in the Kitchen, 
• Christmas Cookie Swap at Our Simple Country
• Home Made for the Holidays day 6 over at Luv Laughter & Happily Ever After.

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