Millie - Mae & Mummy Makes... A Gingerbread House

Published in Issue 20, December 2012

Written by Tracey from WowThankYou

www.wowthankyou.co.uk

Millie - Mae & Mummy Makes... A Gingerbread House

I made a house of gingerbread

It was so sugary sweet

It took me all day long to make

But, it lasted just a week.

Monday I ate the ceiling.

Tuesday I ate the door.

Wednesday I ate the windows.

Thursday I ate the floor.

Friday I ate all four walls.

Saturday I ate the lawn.

Sunday I licked up all the crumbs.

My gingerbread house is gone!

I have never, in my 40 years, made a Gingerbread House – so this was an easy project to pick to do with Millie-Mae. 

If you are considering having a go yourself, make sure you have plenty of time and can be patient – there’s a lot of waiting around for icing to dry! 

Ingredients

175g butter

175g soft dark brown sugar

3 tbsp golden syrup

700g plain flour

1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp mixed spice

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Zest and juice of 1 orange

2 medium free-range eggs

For the decoration

Boiled sweets for the stained glass windows (we used rhubarb and custards)

500g box royal icing sugar, made up nice and thick

Long ‘straw-like’ chews for windowsills

Liquorice comfits for the shutters

A LOT of white chocolate buttons for the roof tiles (I bought 14 bags of Cadbury ones!)

Hundreds-and-thousands for the chimney (though our chimney didn’t survive!)

Jelly beans, sprinkles, other sweets for decoration

Method

1. Put the butter, brown sugar and golden syrup into a pan over a very low heat, stirring until the butter and sugar have melted. Set aside to cool.

2. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda, spices and orange zest in a big bowl. Crack the eggs into another bowl.

3. Add the butter mixture to the flour along with the eggs and orange juice. Mix well, then use your hands to bring together into a ball. Sprinkle a little flour over a clean work surface and knead the dough for a few minutes until smooth. 

4. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Divide the dough into 3 pieces and roll out on to sheets of baking paper. Roll until the gingerbread is about the same thickness as a £1 coin.

Templates: I cheated and printed one from the deliciousmagazine website. Cut out the different pieces (re-rolling the trimmings), then transfer the gingerbread shapes, still on their baking paper, to 3 baking sheets.
Put boiled sweets in each window hole (they will melt in the oven and create a stained-glass effect), then bake for 9 minutes.

5.Carefully slide the gingerbread (still on the baking paper) onto a cooling rack. Leave to cool, preferably overnight.

6. To decorate the house use royal icing to stick on the chew ‘straws’ windowsills and use the liquorice comfits for the shutters. Set aside to set.

7. We assembled our house on a cake board, but a chopping board will give you more garden! Use royal icing to stick the sides, front and back pieces together, and stick the pieces to the board to stabilise the house.

8. Decorate one roof piece: use a knife to spread icing all over the roof, then cover with white chocolate buttons. Start from the bottom adding the buttons in rows that just overlap to look like tiles.

9. Decorate the chimney pieces with icing and hundreds-and-thousands. Wait until the icing is completely dry – we didn’t and it collapsed … so we left it off!
Brush or pipe the icing onto the sloping edges of the front and back of the house to create ‘icicles’. Attach both roof panels, using royal icing, making sure you spread some icing in the middle to glue them together. Stick the chimney pieces together, then attach to the roof with royal icing. Carefully cover the untiled side of the roof with white chocolate buttons in the same way as before. Attach the door to the house and choose a sweet for the door knob.

 

 I have no idea where to store it, no idea how long it will last … but it’s one pretty cool Christmas decoration! Millie-Mae’s nana visited earlier and she thought it was amazing! It was a really fun project to do, although it did take, on and off, a whole weekend. I must leave the last words to Millie-Mae herself when she announced “that has got to be the best thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life” …

Merry Christmas xxx