Gingerbread House
- Total Time
- About 2 hours 20 minutes, plus time for construction
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- ½cup/120 milliliters dark corn syrup
- ½cup/120 milliliters molasses
- ¾cup/160 grams dark brown sugar
- 10tablespoons/142 grams margarine or shortening
- 4½cups/540 grams all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling out the dough
- ½teaspoon salt
- 4teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 2¼teaspoons ground cloves
- 1½teaspoons ground ginger
- 1teaspoon ground star anise, from 2 to 3 stars (optional)
- Royal icing, see recipe
- Candy, such as gumdrops, licorice and candy canes, for decorating
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Preparation
- Step 1
Make the gingerbread: Combine the syrup, molasses, brown sugar and margarine in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring often, until the margarine is melted and the sugar has dissolved; set aside.
- Step 2
Place the flour, salt, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and star anise (if using) in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.
- Step 3
With the machine running on medium-low speed, slowly stream in the sugar mixture and beat until incorporated. Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour.
- Step 4
Heat oven to 375 degrees. (If using a convection oven, heat to 350 degrees.) With a floured rolling pin, roll out the dough to about ¼-inch thickness on a large sheet of parchment paper. Cut out your desired shapes with a chef’s knife or pizza cutter and pull away scraps (if making the gingerbread house from the templates provided, you'll need to cut out two sides and two roofs). To minimize distortion, gently slide the parchment onto a baking sheet. Reroll the scraps and repeat as needed to cut out all of the necessary shapes.
- Step 5
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the edges are lightly browned. If using the template, be sure to bake the door piece. Remove from the oven and let cool completely on the baking sheets. The cookies will harden as they cool.
- Step 6
Assemble the house: Using a pastry bag fitted with small plain round tip, draw windows with royal icing on the pieces as they lie flat. Let the icing set, about two minutes. Then, using icing as glue, attach the 4 walls of the house to each other and support the walls with jars or cans to allow the icing to set. Attach the two roof pieces with icing, and let the icing dry. Attach the door with icing, and then decorate with icing and assorted candies.
- Using cardboard for the template will help provide structure when cutting out the shapes.
Private Notes
Comments
The notes I've read here are consistent with my experience. There is not enough dough, the paper template is not the same design as in the photograph, and the roof doesn't fit. But I trimmed two inches off the bottom of both roof pieces and was then able to stretch the dough far enough. Remind me not to hire Ms. John to build anything.
Great recipe but if I made it again, I would increase the amounts by 1/4. I was short 1 roof piece so I had to make another batch by cutting the original by 1/4. This gave me enough for the 2nd roof and a little extra for repairs and extras. My pieces were a hefty 1/4" thick and very sturdy!
We made gingerbread houses for many years and always used butter . They did not look wonky .when the parts of the house were half baked I would take them out and place the precut pattern pieces over the gingerbread and recut the pieces to match the pattern , that way we always had nice straight edges on our houses.
We had to add more flour for a roll out consistency.
I recommend the original joy of cooking recipe has a very straightforward diagram with inches as the measurement and proportions seems to be more appropriate.
A lot of work only for the paper template to get stuck to the rolled out dough. I ended up ditching the house and making gingerbread cookies with it instead.
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