You have been there. Happy thoughts of a beautiful gingerbread house with happy children and an amazing decoration to liven your winter home. But it’s not always so! Here’s our simple secret to The Ultimate Gingerbread House. You’ll be amazed!
Who doesn’t love a good gingerbread house? I mean really.
But who has laboured over one to find it slip apart, have the roof fall off, or the walls fall down, or have had the gingerbread tooth breaking hard? Well, unless you started off with a full proof recipe in the first place, I think we have all fallen victim to the Gingerbread House that looks as though it was face to face with the Big Bad Wolf.
So, what’s the secret?
Gingerbread House Recipe
Ingredients:
3/4 cup whipping cream
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp. baking soda
1/2 tbsp. ginger
1 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 cup molasses
4 1/2 cups flour
Directions:
Preheat oven to 300 F, and line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Whip cream and vanilla until soft peaks form.
Mix sugar, baking soda, ginger and cinnamon in large bowl. Add molasses and whipped cream.
Gradually add the flour in, mixing completely.
Roll out on lightly floured surface, to 1/8″ thin, and cut pieces (get pdf. template here) and place on parchment lined sheets
Bake 30-40 min.
The Icing Cement
Ingredients:
2 lg. egg whites (use pasteurized eggs)
1/8 tsp. cream of tartar
2 tsp. water
3 cups icing sugar (powdered sugar)
Directions:
Whip egg whites with tartar and water until frothy.
Add sugar and whip on high speed until stiff. This can take a long time, and whip it until it is stiff. Really stiff. Peaks that don’t fall over at all stiff.
Use immediately. Use the icing to keep the walls up first, and then to secure the roof panels. This icing will harden really fast. Especially if you are in a more arid climate. So while you want to let each wall / corner harden up a bit before adding the next one on – you will want to work fairly quickly with the candies that you decorate, because the icing will become really difficult to work with.
