Thursday 1 January 2009

Gingerbread house

I had wanted to do this last year, but couldn't find the time. Luckily I was off work this week, so decided to make my gingerbread house!


I found this site, gingerbread house heaven, really helpful as they provide templates and loads of advice. I based mine on the basic template, but then had to scale it down a bit, as my batch of gingerbread wasn't quite enough.





The inside of the walls was sugarpaste, to give it something to lean against, and the rest of it was put together with royal icing mix. The mix was really thick and I needed to use my hands to get it into all the gaps. I used some tins to support it overnight while it dried.


Then it was onto the fun bit: decorating!!!


I considered making it accurate, but it was more fun seeing how many sweets I could balance on it :) Chocolate buttons are great roof tiles, and I used some of the icing to make icicles. Unfortunately they just looked like the icing drips.



I bought the wee jelly figures last year, so we couldn't eat them, but I had to have Santa and a reindeer going down the chimney.



Once I made it, I had to wait a few days to enjoy it before I cut it. From being fairly sturdy assembled it came apart remarkably easily. I suspect that the thick icing was still a little wet! I used a sharp knife between the walls. I had been worried that it would have gone soggy, but the actual gingerbread was still nice. That extra spoonful of ginger really made a difference!

1 comment:

Ruth Strong said...

Hey great work on the gingerbread house! Must take a lot of patience.