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Gingerbread House

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Gingerbread House

Disposable piping bags will make the decorating easier, as the traditional sort can be difficult to clean and dry properly.

Preparation time:
40 minutes
Cooking time:
15 minutes
Total time:
55 minutes 55 minutes
Makes:
 1 house and 12 gingerbread men

Ingredients

  • 750g plain flour, plus extra for rolling out
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp ground ginger
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • ½ tsp ground allspice
  • 225g butter
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 115g light soft brown sugar
  • 350g black treacle
  • 500g royal icing sugar mix

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas 4. Sift the flour, baking powder and spices into a large bowl. Over a gentle heat, stir the butter, salt, sugar and treacle together until smooth; add to the bowl and mix to a dough. On a floured surface, roll out to 5mm thick. Using the templates, cut out 4 walls and 2 roof panels; cut a door out of the front wall. There should be enough dough left to make 12 gingerbread men.
  2. Space out on lined baking sheets. Bake for 12–15 minutes, until the edges are darker brown than the centre. Cool for 5 minutes, then move to a wire rack.
  3. Add 3–4 tbsp cold water to the icing mix and whip with an electric whisk for 8 minutes, until peaks form. Transfer half to a piping bag with a small nozzle and use it to stick the 4 walls of the house together. Stand the house on a plate and use full tin cans to prop the walls up until the icing dries. Pipe more icing along the top of the 4 walls, stick on the roof and leave to dry. Stick the door on. Put the remaining icing in a new piping bag with a fine nozzle to add icing details to the roof and walls.

Cook's tips

You will need a paper template to make this house; for instructions see waitrose.com/house.

Comments and images

Average user rating 4 stars out of 5

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Bristol-Foodie

Bristol-Foodie 02 January 2011 20:30

this is great fun to make but really really difficult - ours ended up looking nothing like the picure!! We found that it took us about 4 days to put together, after sticking the walls together, we needed to leave it for a day for the icing to dry. Royal icing is difficult to get sticky enough (it needs to be really stiff otherwise it will be runny) a tip from my mum was to melt marshmellows in the microwave until they turn into a sticky glue like substance and to use that instead...

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4 stars out of 5

Average user rating Based on 44 ratings

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Nutritional Info

Typical values per serving:
Energy 209.0kcal
Sugars 24.0g
Fat 6.0g
Saturated Fat 3.0g
Salt 0.2g

per gingerbread man

Click here for more information about health and nutrition


This recipe was first published on Waitrose.com in December 2008