Happy National Gingerbread House Day!
We love this easy Mary Berry gingerbread recipe:
If you want to read the original more in depth recipe click here.
Ingredients:
For the Gingerbread:
375g unsalted butter
300g dark muscovado sugar
150g golden syrup
900g plain flour
1 tbsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tbsp ground ginger
For the icing:
3 free-range egg whites
675g icing sugar, sifted
3 tsp lemon juice
For the decoration:
Boiled sweets
Chocolate buttons
Jelly sweets
Chocolates
Powder icing sugar
Cake board
Method:
Preheat your oven to 200°C or 180°C for a fan assisted oven.
In a large pan, melt together the butter sugar and syrup.
In a separate bowl, sieve the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ground ginger together.
Make a well in the centre and pour in the liquid butter mixture. Stir it in and, when cool enough to handle, knead into a stiff dough.
Next divide the dough into five equal pieces, then divide one of those into two - so you have six pieces of dough in total.
Roll out each piece of dough out on to a sheet of parchment paper to ¾cm thickness.
Using a template, cut the pieces to make the sides and roof of the house.
Using a sharp knife, cut out the windows, doors and star shape on the back.
Place the doors on a separate tray and re-roll the offcuts to make a chimney.
Slide onto baking trays and bake for 8 minutes or until even in colour.
To make glass windows in your gingerbread house, crush up some boiled sweets (any colour you desire) and place them in the windows. Place these pieces back in the oven until the sweets have melted.
Leave the gingerbread to cool completely before decorating.
Time to decorate!
You can be as creative as you want with the decoration of your gingerbread house. It can be covered in colourful sweets or iced and decorated in a more traditional style - it's completely up to you!
To make the icing, whisk the egg whites until frothy. Using a wooden spoon or a hand-held electric mixer on slow speed, add the icing sugar a tablespoonful at a time. Stir in the lemon juice and beat the icing until it is very stiff and white.
Next, to create roof tiles, spoon the icing into a piping bag and pipe small dots on the back of the chocolate buttons and stick onto the roof of the ginger bread house.
Spoon six tablespoons of the icing over the cake board and, using a palette knife, spread the icing to cover the board with a snow effect and to create a base to stick the house on to.
Pipe some icing along the wall edges and join the house together on an iced cake board. Leave the icing to dry for a minimum of four hours, but preferably overnight.
Once dry, stick the roof onto the walls of the house. If you want your gingerbread house to look especially Christmassy, place a couple of fake tealights or nightlights inside before adding the roof. The light will shine through the boiled sweet windows and make it look like a real home.
Pipe some icing along the apex and edges of the roof to look like snow and icicles. Stick the front door in place with icing. Once you have finished decorating, dust the house with icing sugar for the final snowy touch.
The rest is up to you! Go crazy with colourful jelly sweets or make some gingerbread characters or trees to accompany the house.
This gingerbread house makes the perfect Christmas decoration, you could even give this to someone as an amazing gift!
If you decide to follow this recipe make sure to let us know by tagging #MadiaMatilda and #GingerBreadHouseDay
Sincerely Madia & Matilda
