Easy Gingerbread House Recipe
Step 1
Make Gingerbread Dough: Place flour, sugar, baking soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves and butter in a food processor. Process until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add syrup, egg and milk. Process until dough just comes together. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead until just smooth. Shape dough into 3 discs. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Flour: 3 3/4 cups plain flour, plus extra for dusting
Sugar: 3/4 cup brown sugar
Baking soda: 1 and 1/2 tsp
Ground ginger: 3 tsp
Cinnamon: 1 and 1/2 tsp
Cloves: 1/4 tsp
Butter: 150g
Step 2
Cut out the template (download from the tips below). Put a sheet of baking paper on a work surface and roll about one quarter of the dough to the thickness of two $1 coins. Cut out one of the sections, then slide the gingerbread, still on its baking paper, onto a baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough, re-rolling the trimmings, until you have two side walls, a front and back wall and two roof panels. Any leftover dough can be cut into Christmas trees, if you like.
Step 3:
Bake all the sections for 12 mins or until firm and just a little darker at the edges. Leave to cool for a few minutes to firm up, then trim around the templates again to give clean, sharp edges. Leave to cool
completely.
Step 4
Put the egg whites in a large bowl, sift in the icing sugar, then stir to make a thick, smooth icing. Spoon into a piping bag with a medium nozzle. Pipe generous snakes of icing along the wall edges, one by one, to join the walls together. Use a small bowl to support the walls from the inside, then allow to dry, ideally for a few hours.
Step 5
Once dry, remove the supports and fix the roof panels on. The angle is steep so you may need to hold these on firmly for a few mins until the icing starts to dry. Dry completely, ideally overnight. To decorate, pipe a little icing along the length of 20 mini chocolate fingers and stick these lengthways onto the side walls of the house. Use three, upright, for the door.
Step 6
Using the icing, stick sweets around the door and on the front of the house. To make the icicles, start with the nozzle at a 90-degree angle to the roof and squeeze out a pea-sized blob of icing. Keeping the pressure on, pull the nozzle down and then off – the icing will pull away, leaving a pointy trail. Repeat all around the front of the house. Cut the chocolate mini roll or dipped Flake on an angle, then fix with icing to make a chimney. Pipe a little icing around the top. If you’ve made gingerbread trees, decorate these now, too, topping each with a silver ball, if using. Dust the roof with icing sugar for a snowy effect. Lay a winding path of sweets, and fix gingerbread trees around and about using blobs of icing.
