This time of year is my absolute favourite for baking. With the nights drawing in and the temperature plummeting, I love that sweet smell of Christmas goodies in the oven. One of my favourite things to bake each Christmas is my gingerbread houses. So if you are starting to plan all your Christmas baking these are a great choice. The gingerbread houses sit on a 6inch square base, and are a perfect size to give as gifts to friends and family. I tend to make these a few weeks before Christmas and pop them into clear gift boxes or wrap in cellophane, and the biscuit stays perfectly crisp until Christmas.
Below is a video tutorial I created last year which shows you exactly how I make them. This includes the recipe which will make 1 complete house, plus a printout of the templates I use for each of the 12 pieces (Click here to download the template). You can then print this off and cut them out to make your own house.
My favourite part of making my gingerbread houses is the decoration. I use icing / fondant for all the little details, including the chain of lights on the front of the house, which is my favourite, and finishing the houses off with royal icing which I pipe all over to give the effect of the snow.
I really hope you enjoy the tutorial and will enjoy making your own festive Gingerbread House this Christmas.
Gingerbread House Recipe
Ingredients
- 290 g Plain Flour
- 50 g Caster sugar
- 50 g Brown sugar
- 90 g Golden Syrup
- 120 g Butter
- 1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
- 1.5 tsp Ginger
- 0.5 tsp Cinnamon
Instructions
- Into a mixing bowl sift in the plain flour. Add the bicarbonate of soda, the ground cinnamon and the ground ginger and pop to one side.
- Into a saucepan add the butter, caster sugar, the brown sugar and the golden syrup and place this onto your hob until all the ingredients have melted together.
- You then want to add your melted ingredients to your dry ingredients in your mixing bowl. Using a wooden spoon or spatula mix this all together until it forms a dough. You can finish this off mixing it with your hands to make sure the ingredients are all combined.
- Take a piece of cling film / plastic wrap and push down your dough, coving it over. Place this into the fridge for 30 minutes.
- Whilst your dough is in the fridge you will need to print off and cut out your template pieces. You can find my template here.
- After 30 minutes take your dough out of the fridge. You can then dust your surface with a little flour and roll out your dough until its around 5mm in thickness. Then use a knife to cut out all of your shapes and place on a baking tray.
- Place your cut out shapes into a preheated oven set to 180 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes. You want the edges just to start changing colour.
- After 10 minutes you can take your shapes out of the oven to let them cool. I like to use my templates and carefully (they will be hot) cut around the template a second time, to cut off any areas that have spread in size. This will help your house fit together a little easier.
- You then have all the pieces for your gingerbread house. I like to use royal icing to stick my pieces together. Watch how to decorate your Gingerbread house in my tutorial above.
