I’ve wanted to make a gingerbread house for ages now and I was too impatient to wait until Christmas so I went ahead and made a Halloween House.
To make the house I followed Kirstie Allsopp’s recipe http://www.channel4.com/4food/recipes/tv-show-recipes/kirsties-handmade-britain-recipes/gingerbread-house-recipe
I made this over two days, the first I made the gingerbread mix and icing. I left the gingerbread in the fridge overnight. The second day I made the panels and assembled the house. I would advise to take the dough out the fridge a couple of hours before you roll it though because it’s too hard otherwise. I also cut it up into four parts and rolled it out to make it easier.
Once rolled out I cut around the templates I had made using a sharp knife and placed straight onto baking trays lined with baking paper. I left these in the freezer for just over an hour. If you do this make sure the gingerbread is completely flat on the trays otherwise they will freeze with curled edges. Freezing them definitely stops the gingerbread spreading out in the oven.
I had loads of dough left over so I made different sized men, trees and pumpkins to decorate my house (and eat whilst decorating to stop me eating the house). If you don’t have a cutter just print a template off and cut around that using the point of a knife – works the same just a little more effort.
So bake your house panels in the oven at 180 degrees for 8-10 minutes. If you want to cut the edges when they come out the oven then do it quickly before they harden but I found that it wasn’t necessary.
This is the fun bit. I got my brother to help me out, two people is definitely easier than one. I have a cool icing tool which I used but a piping bag will work just the same. Add a couple of drops of colouring to the icing if you want to create a different effect. Ice down both sides of a panel and carefully attach another panel. You may want to use a knife or something to spread the icing and fill in any gaps. Hold the panels together for a couple of minutes to be sure they are sticking. Do the same with the other side panels.
Now for the trickiest bit. Ice alongside the roof and top of the side panel being fairly generous with the icing. Gently place the roof onto the icing and hold there for a few minutes. When you are confident it’s not going to slip do the other side and ice in between the two roof panels where they meet in the middle. Once this is done it’s time for the decorating! I used after eights for the roof panels (although I ran out so I had to spread them across the roof which left large gaps)
So here it is! My brother decorated some people to live in it. As well as looking cool and tasting good it was so much fun to make!
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