What better way to get into the Holiday Spirit than to make and
decorate a real gingerbread house? With a few basic ingredients and
some imagination you can make a house as simple or as elaborate as you
like! This is my second gingerbread house (you can see last years house here) and its pretty big: 13"w x 6"d x 13"h. This mansion was inspired by a gingerbread house kit that my dad saw in a magazine. You can buy that kit here or do like we did and make your own templates!
Once you have your templates cut out its time to make the dough. You can find the recipe for gingerbread house dough here.
Roll the dough out to 1/8" thick and put the rolled dough into the
freezer for and hour so that it is fairly stiff. The stiff dough will
be much easier to cut and your edges will be nice and crisp.
Trace
around your template with a sharp knife and save the dough scraps. Keep
re-rolling and cutting until all your pieces are finished. If you are
going to have "real" windows make sure to cut them out as well. Chill
all the cut-outs in the freezer until ready to bake. Keeping the dough
cold will help insure that your design stays intact! Bake each of the
pieces until lightly browned and cool completely on a wire rack. While
the cookies are cooling, make the royal icing. You can find the recipe for royal icing here.
Place the icing into a piping bag with a small round piping tip. When
the cookies are completely cooled you can draw your designs right onto
the cookie with a pencil and then trace over with the royal icing (I
like to decorate my house before assembly but you can decorate later if
you wish). Let the icing dry overnight before assembling the house. The
next day I made sugar glass panes for my windows. You can do
this by melting 1 1/2 cups sugar with 1/4 cup water and 1 teaspoon
lemon juice in a heavy bottom saucepan.
Melt over high heat until
slightly golden in color and the temperature should be around 282-300
degrees on a digital or candy thermometer. Pour window-sized puddles of the melted
sugar onto a silpat and let set until cool and hardened. If you need to
trim some of the windowpanes, use a sharp knife to score the pane and
then snap apart.
Remove the windowpanes from the silpat and adhere to
the back of the cookie with royal icing as glue. Let set for 30 minutes
to an hour before assembling the house. When the windows are set you
can begin assembling the house by using either royal icing or
carmelized sugar for glue (this is a good tutorial for using carmelized sugar for glue).
The
carmelized sugar has the advantage of setting instantly, however that
means you can't move pieces around once you've glued them together!
I
used the carmelized sugar this time and it is really great–No waiting
for icing to dry! If you use icing, have some canned goods on hand to
help prop up the house until dry.
Once the house is secure you can finish decorating with more royal
icing, candies and sparkling sugars. Remember: icing covers all
mistakes! I used powders sugar for "snow" on the roof and dusted on
some sparking disco dust for lots of shimmer.
I left a hole in the back of my
house so that I could insert lights that make the sugar windows on the house glow like its
lit from within! Happy Holidays!
P.S. If you'd like to decorate a gingerbread house but don't want to bother with the baking and mess you can run down to William-Sonoma and buy a whole pre-baked kit here for only $20! Or you can buy a pre-made mansion here, but it will set you back $300!!
P.S. If you'd like to decorate a gingerbread house but don't want to bother with the baking and mess you can run down to William-Sonoma and buy a whole pre-baked kit here for only $20! Or you can buy a pre-made mansion here, but it will set you back $300!!
Thanks so much for all the information! My friend and I just challenged each other to a gingerbread house competition, and neither of us have made one before. Your website has become my secret weapon!
Posted by: Jessica | 12/10/2015 at 12:40 PM
I would love to buy the gingerbread house template kit, but the link seems to be broken! Are you able to help?
Posted by: Amanda | 11/07/2013 at 07:08 AM
[cest top] WOW! Amazing job! Love it!!
Posted by: faithy | 12/11/2009 at 06:20 AM
Fabulous!
Posted by: Mary Dawson | 12/10/2009 at 05:08 PM
Thanks LP! My dad is an excellent template maker!!
Posted by: anna | 12/10/2009 at 01:28 PM
[this is good] HOLY COW! Excellent work! :o)
Posted by: LP | 12/10/2009 at 12:20 PM