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