Hansel & Gretel would love this!!

I had a rush of blood to the head last Friday and decided to make a gingerbread house from scratch!! So after a quick flick through my trusty handwritten recipe book that mum gave me when I first moved out of home 8 years ago and a search via Google for a template I got to baking.
I was actually amazed at just how simple it was. I had the gingerbread walls and roof all finished and cooling in an hour. I used the following recipe with 3 times the amount of each ingredient to be sure I had enough (we ended up making some star biscuits with the left over gingerbread but I was glad to have too much than too little)
125g butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg yolk
2 1/2 cups plain flour
3 teaspoons ground ginger
2 1/2 tablespoons golden syrup

Once the gingerbread is made and rolled out I used the template I printed out from HERE to make the wall and roof shapes then baked them for approx 30 mins then let them stand to cool completely.
When you're ready to put your house together I suggest you get everything ready before starting eg: cake board, lollies, piping bag etc etc then use the following recipe to make your royal icing and scoop it all into your piping bag (or you can use a Glad 'snap lock' bag and snip a VERY small hole in on of the corners of the bag to use like a piping bag).
2 1/2 cups of Icing sugar (or confectioners' sugar)
2 egg whites
Beat egg whites until light and fluffy then slowly add icing sugar 1/2 a cup at a time.

Royal icing works almost like cement to hold your gingerbread house together but it takes patience to hold each piece together while it sets enough to stand alone.
Start with a side wall and and end wall piece. Squeeze a line of icing along the bottom and end edge of walls and place on your cake board and hold in place while the icing sets enough for it to stand alone (maybe grab a trashy mag to flick through while your waiting)


Repeat the same for the other two wall pieces. You will now have a roofless house.



Once the icing has set well, pipe a line of icing along the top edge of the wall pieces and place the roof pieces on top. Again hold in place while the icing sets so they don't slide off.
When the icing had set enough I took the chance to 'fill in' any gaps between the walls or wall and roof pieces with some extra icing.
Now comes the fun part... Decorating!! This is only limited to your imagination and lollie supply... Have fun!!
The lollies I used were: Jelly Beans, Musk Sticks, Fruit Jubes, Chocolate Freckles
but you could use so many other lollies like: Smarties, Mini Candy Canes, Jelly Babies, Chocolate Drops, Licorice Allsorts...




With a light sprinkling of icing sugar to create to look of snow our Gingerbread house is all finished!!


It has pride of place on our dining table for the next week then will be taken to a family Christmas Picnic we have on the 20th where I'm sure all the kids will have fun breaking it apart and munching if all up!!


Milla and I decorated the star biscuits we had made from the left over gingerbread and then wrapped them up for little gifts for some friends that came to dinner on Saturday night.