Building and Decorating Gingerbread House

Building and Decorating Gingerbread House

First and foremost, you must know we use the gingerbread house form from Formina homepage.  They have plenty to chose from, but the direct link to the one my husband and i chose for our gingerbread house is here.

Now that you have let your gingerbread house dough rested overnight in the fridge. It is time to take it out and begin with the fun part!

I am far from being the most creative person and can't even admit that i can bake a simple cookie. So, if i say this is do'able, trust me. It is. 

This gingerbread house dough is actually prepared by my darling husband.

Click here for the dough recipe

First things first.

Take the overnight dough out so it will be easier to roll out flat later.

The measurement we used is an A4 size. If you prefer bigger house, then you need to resize the form into your preferable size.

Before you roll the dough, print out your house form, cut it and place all the cut out in order.

 

Mark the walls and cut the print out neatly

Place the cut out nicely. So that your house won't miss a wall!

Once the gingerbread house measurement are neatly cut and placed. Clean the surface where you will roll the dough.

Sprinkle some flour on the cleaned surface.

Divide the dough into 4 portion. Roll the first one flat with a rolling pin.

It take some times to roll it since the dough is still cold. Keep it going

Place the cut out onto the flatten dough. Place them as your preparation (so that it is easy for you to know which goes to where)

Make a cutting on the dough according to the cut out (as shown above).

Set aside the unwanted dough. 

Be careful when you peel the dough from the surface. It is very helpful if you use the dough cutter.

Also, do start from bottom to top. Cut out the window before you bake it in the oven.
The leftover from this batch, don't throw it away. Roll it back and flatten it. Make a gingerbread cookies!

Place it in the heated oven. Depending on the power of your oven, for us, it took 9 minutes to be ready. 

Just make sure you bake it until it is golden brown.

Prepare the rest of the gingerbread house and cookies while waiting for each of the group are done.

Place the ready and warm cookies on the cooling rack to cool down.

When all of the cookies are done and let cooled, it is time to prepare for the glue and build the house!

Ingredient for the glue

 2 dl Sugar

1 dl Water

1 tbsp Glucose

Be careful when you prepare this glue. It is extremely hot. Don't let your kids doing this part.

Before you start preparing this, you will need to make sure all the house parts are close by and ready to work with. Once the glue is ready, it will harden very quickly. So you have to work fast but careful.

For the flooring / ground, I'm using a cutting board wrapped in aluminium foil.  

I'm using Glucose by Dr.Oetker

 Add all the ingredient in a pan. Place the pan on high heat.

The liquid will be very hot and very dangerous. Please be very careful. Stir it none stop.

It is ready when it turned golden brown. Just like in the picture. Remove from the heat.

 Dip the end where you will connect 2 corners together.

Connect the two wall corners carefully. Hold it for a moment so the sugar will stick together. You can ask someone to dip the other wall corner while you holding on the previous one. 

Keep doing it as quick as you can and stay careful.
It may stuck onto the foil. But worry not. Once it cooled down, it easy to remove if you need to re-position.

How you do the roof

 For the roof part. Its a tricky one. You need to use a spoon on the longer side of the edges because you will not need the glue to be at the right edge. Its slightly in the inner corner side.
Just like in the picture.

Observe the corner of the roof. That is why i use the spoon to put the glue.

Leave the glue to set overnight in somewhere dry before you start with your decoration. 

Like i have mentioned earlier.. neither me nor my husband is the most creative person. Our cat probably more creative than us. Who knows!

So here is our very first gingerbread house.  We wish you have a great fun day with your gingerbread house. Also, have a good laugh of ours.

No. That house is not decorated by kids. It was by 2 adult in their late 30s while the other one beginning of 40s.

Ingredients for the sugar frosting:

1 egg white

1 tspn white vinegar

4 dl icing sugar

Whisk all the ingredients together. Once it form a thick liquid, then place it into piping bag. You are ready to go!

*If you don't have a piping bag, you can use a plastic bag. Make a very small cut at the corner. ( i  like using a plastic bag. Less cleaning.

* You can add color in and whisk it together if you want to.