Cooking gingerbread house. Gingerbread House: Christmas Treat Recipe

A wonderful tradition of making a gingerbread house with your own hands before the New Year and Christmas holidays came to our country not so long ago from Europe. The art of creating these edible architectural masterpieces originated in Germany in the 19th century and quickly gained popularity, spreading to neighboring European countries. Not only did gingerbread houses become a must-have holiday decoration for people's homes, but they also made their home at Christmas markets and special exhibitions, where you could even get some nice prize for them. So, for more than 20 years, in the charming Norwegian town of Bergen, shortly before Christmas, a real gingerbread city has been opened, for which local residents create edible exhibits of amazing beauty and originality.

An important prerequisite for the emergence of a culture of gingerbread houses was the creation back in the Middle Ages of a special type of dough, products from which did not get stale for a long time and remained edible even a couple of weeks after baking. Gingerbread dough and making houses from it allowed people not only to decorate their homes for the holidays, but also later to enjoy these delicious decorations to the delight of all family members, young and old. In addition, this is a very fragrant, plastic and very easy-to-prepare dough, which is a real pleasure to work with for both beginners and advanced cooks.

Today I want to tell you in detail how to make a gingerbread house with my own hands, be sure to connect my friends, children and other family members to this exciting business. There is nothing particularly difficult in making a house, and I will try to reveal all the secrets and possible pitfalls of this process so that you can easily create your own unique and inimitable culinary and architectural masterpiece. A homemade gingerbread house can serve as a wonderful element of the New Year's decor of your apartment, as well as go to a school exhibition or a charity Christmas market. At the end of the holidays, you can even arrange a ritual eating of the house, although personally I would not risk encroaching on my own work of art. But just in case, I advise you not to store it for more than two weeks before eating.

Be sure to try making a gingerbread house at home with family and friends. This is a great holiday pastime that will help you and your children develop your imagination and creativity, and besides, it may well become your new family New Year's tradition!

How to make a gingerbread house with your own hands:, and,

INGREDIENTS:

• 420 g flour
• 150 g honey
• 80 g sugar
• 1 pack vanilla sugar
• 90 g butter
• 2 small eggs
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ground spices: 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. ginger, 1/2 tsp cardamom, a pinch of cloves, a pinch of nutmeg

Glaze #1:

• 1 egg white
• 100 g powdered sugar
• 1 tsp lemon juice

Glaze #2:

• 1 egg white
• 200 g powdered sugar
• 1 tsp lemon juice

Decorations:

• colored sprinkles
• colorful dragees
• coconut flakes

COOKING METHOD:

1. In order to make a do-it-yourself gingerbread house for the New Year, first knead tasty and fragrant gingerbread dough for it. To do this, put sugar, honey, vanilla sugar and diced butter in a small saucepan.

2. Heat the honey mixture over low heat, stirring occasionally, until all the ingredients are combined into a thick homogeneous mass. Do not bring the mixture to a boil, as honey will lose its beneficial properties.

3. Cool the mixture for 10-15 minutes until slightly warm, then add eggs and ground spices to it and mix thoroughly.

4. Pour the honey mixture into a deep bowl for kneading the dough and gradually, in 2-3 doses, pour the flour sifted with baking powder into it.

5. Thoroughly knead the dough until smooth with your hands or in a food processor using the “hook” nozzle. The gingerbread dough should be tight, not sticky at all, and easily come together in a ball.

6. Gather the dough into a ball, wrap in cling film and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or even overnight.

For ease of rolling, I divided the gingerbread dough into 2 parts and gave them the shape of flat rectangles. But you can store the dough in the form of one large ball. If the dough has lain in the refrigerator for several hours, it is better to take it out 20 to 30 minutes before working with it in order to simplify the rolling procedure.

Gingerbread house template

7. In the meantime, you need to cut out templates for the gingerbread house from thick cardboard. You can cut windows and a door into them in advance, but I did it on an already rolled out dough “by eye”. In addition, windows can not even be cut out at all, but painted on the walls of the house with protein glaze.

8. Roll out half of the gingerbread dough on a floured surface into a layer about 5 mm thick.

Important! When rolling out, keep in mind that the dough will expand slightly during baking. It should not be too thin, otherwise the structure of the house will be fragile, but too thick walls will be difficult to fix together.

9. Attach cardboard templates to the dough and cut out the details of the house. Transfer them to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and dust lightly with flour.

10. Bake in an oven preheated to 180 ° C on the lower level for 10 - 12 minutes. The dough for the gingerbread house should not be browned, as soon as it begins to golden around the edges, it must be removed from the oven.

11. Also roll out the remaining dough, cut it out and bake the base for a free-form house and other details to decorate the entire installation that your imagination tells you - a chimney, a bench, Christmas trees, etc. You can make gingerbread cookies from the rest of the dough, bake and eat them without leaving the cash register 🙂

12. While the details of the house are cooling, you should prepare protein glaze No. 1 to decorate the house. To do this, beat the chilled egg white at high speeds of the mixer into foam, gradually adding powdered sugar.

13. Beat the mixture intensively for 2-3 minutes and add lemon juice at the very end. You should get a thick, but fluid protein glaze.

Decorating and assembling a gingerbread house

14. Pour the icing into a pastry bag with a thin nozzle and decorate the house with it at your discretion. You can circle the windows, the door, draw the tiles on the roof, etc.

15. Until the icing is dry, you can stick various decorations on it - colored confectionery sprinkles, multi-colored M&M's dragees, and also sprinkle parts with coconut flakes that imitate snow. After that, it is necessary to allow the glaze to dry completely for several hours, otherwise it may smear or leak when installing the parts of the house.

16. To fasten the parts and install the house, you should prepare protein glaze No. 2 with an increased amount of powdered sugar. It turns out thicker and stickier and dries faster, allowing you to better fix all the joints.

The first step is to install two adjacent walls of the house on a base baked from dough, or some other surface (plate, tray). Protein glaze should be applied with a pastry bag to those surfaces that are fastened to each other, as well as to the base for the house. Having installed the walls, you can hold them with your hands for some time until the glaze hardens, or support them on all sides with objects that are suitable in size. In addition, to make the walls stand more even and perpendicular to each other, you can insert a rectangular object inside the house.

Advice! If you see that the joints of the parts of the house do not fit together very well, for example, due to their deformation during the baking process, then you can lightly file them with a knife for a more accurate and comfortable fit to each other.

17. Next, you must immediately install the other two walls of the house and wait for them to be firmly fixed for about an hour. So that the protein glaze left for the roof does not dry out during this time, cover the bowl with it with a damp towel.

18. At the last stage of assembling the house, you need to attach two parts of the roof in turn, generously smearing the joints with protein glaze.

Advice! In the process of assembling a gingerbread house, some problems may arise, for example, glaze flowing where it should not, or, conversely, a lack of glaze in some places. Spilled glaze can be easily corrected or removed with a cotton swab, and also applied with a brush to cracks or other necessary places.

After the house is fully assembled, you can additionally decorate it or correct the imperfections with the remaining protein glaze. In addition, you can decorate the base for the house with icing and sprinkles, as well as glue and attach the remaining parts - a chimney, an entrance door, a bench, etc. Here, the scope for your imagination is practically unlimited.

A cozy and elegant gingerbread house, made with the help of relatives and friends, will create a New Year's mood and become the best home decoration for the upcoming holidays!

For all the apparent complexity, preparing such a house is quite simple. In addition, to save time when preparing a holiday, it can and even needs to be prepared in advance. It keeps very well and only gets better with time.

And yet, the gingerbread house is not only a decoration for the New Year's table, but also a great sweet gift.

Put butter, honey, sugar and spices for gingerbread into a separate pan with a thick bottom. Put on a small fire to heat up, stirring the contents from time to time - the mass should become homogeneous. It should be heated until the sugar is completely dissolved, but in no case let the mass boil!

Note: a mixture of spices for gingerbread (if it is not possible to buy ready-made) you can prepare yourself - just mix 1 teaspoon of ground ginger, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom ... Use the indicated amount in the recipe, use the remaining amount in other recipes .

Once the sugar has dissolved, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the grated lemon zest and fresh ginger.

Now you can measure the right amount of flour and mix it with baking powder and cocoa powder.

During this time, the mass will cool down a bit and you can first stir in one egg at a time until smooth. And then add the sifted flour mixture with cocoa.

Knead the dough, adding more flour to the work surface if necessary. The dough is very plastic, practically not sticky to hands. And even if it seems to you that it is still sticky, I would not advise you to "weight" this dough with a lot of flour - just knead it until smooth.

Then put it in some sealed sealed container (a bowl with a lid or just a food bag) and put it in the refrigerator for 10-12 hours (very convenient at night).

Before you start working with the dough, take it out half an hour beforehand - let it warm up a little and soften, it will be easier to roll it out.

During this time, you need to decide on the size and type of house. You will have to draw and cut out patterns of details from paper - the roof, front and side.

After rolling out the dough, attach paper templates and cut out the desired number of pieces from the dough.

2 pieces from each template.

From the remaining dough, you can cut out the details of the decor at your discretion - a pipe, a fence, a Christmas tree ... What is enough for your imagination.

After all the decor, I still had dough left and from it I just baked the base for the house.

Bake the details of the house for about 10-12 minutes in an oven preheated to 180 degrees, until a beautiful golden color. At the same time, it must be remembered that for smaller parts, the time may be shorter, otherwise they may burn.

Allow all baked parts to cool completely on a flat surface to avoid deformation.

And now it's time to prepare the sugar-lemon glaze - this is both a decoration and a means of "gluing" the details of the house.

It is necessary to squeeze the juice of a lemon, strain it through a strainer from the seeds and possible pulp.

We received so many letters asking us to tell how we cook gingerbread and teach how to do it in the same way that we wanted to put together all the knowledge gained over a long period of work.
Therefore, we announce the launch of our online school and invite you to take part in the first course, detailed information .

Step 1. Preparation.

To create a gingerbread house you will need:

1.Details for the gingerbread house:

• Front (main) and rear facade.
• Two end walls.
• two parts of the roof
• Door (optional).
• Foundation

These parts can be baked at home or purchased at our store (the set also includes confectionery decorations).

2. Protein glaze - icing(white or colored as desired) of different consistency for contour painting and for gluing the details of the house.

Glaze can be prepared independently, using or purchased from ours.

3. confectionery decorations(optional).

Step 2. Contour painting and decoration of details.

Cut a bag of icing in the corner and, gently pressing, decorate the facades and end sides of the house with icing. Confectionery sprinkles and decorations are glued to the icing while it is still wet.(better to do it right away), because. glaze dries in 10-20 minutes (depending on consistency).

When you have painted all the details, let the glaze dry completely and proceed with the assembly (see step 3).

Step 3. Assembling the frame of the house.

To glue the parts of the gingerbread house you will need very thick frosting, otherwise the details will not “grab” with each other and the house will collapse before our eyes. If you are gluing a house for the first time, please be patient. To insure yourself, you can prepare in advance small, but rather heavy items from kitchen utensils that will support the parts during gluing (for example, it can be a salt shaker or a jar of spices).

Take the base for the house (it can be round or rectangular). Estimate the dimensions of the base and the house in advance, so that when assembling all the parts fit on the base. Start with the main front: to do this, apply a horizontal line of gluing glaze on the base and carefully place the front on it.

Next, apply glaze on the right edge of the facade, and draw a line perpendicular to the facade on the base (the end wall of the house will stand on it). Holding the facade with one hand, with the other hand, carefully place the end wall with windows so that it is outside the facade (i.e., the facade walls in all the houses should be, as it were, inside the end walls). Install the second end wall in the same way.

Before placing the rear front, apply glaze to the base and on the inside of the end walls, trim them so that they form a rectangle with the main front. Place the rear facade carefully between the end walls. Leave the house for 20-30 minutes and then proceed with the installation of the roof.

Step 3. Installing the roof.

Apply gluing glaze to all the top edges of the facades and end walls of the house. Take one of the roof pieces and apply glaze to one of the longest side ribs.

Carefully place the part on the house as shown in the photo. Take the second part from the roof and carefully place it on the house so that it is in close contact with the other part of the roof. Let the roof dry thoroughly.

To install the door, apply glaze to one of the sides of the doorway and then to the base of the house at an angle. The sidewall and the angle depend on which direction and how much the door will be ajar.

Then proceed to decorate the seams with glaze for gluing, for this you can use special confectionery nozzles (optional). A regular bag will do: to create a wave-like effect, when pressing, move the bag with a small amplitude.

Step 4. Bringing beauty.

Decorate the roof as you wish, sprinkle powdered sugar on top of the house for a snowy effect. The house is ready!

Helpful Hints:

• If any of the parts of the house cracked during transportation or assembly, do not worry! It is enough to apply glaze from the inner sides of the crack and press the cracked halves, let the glaze dry for about 20-30 minutes ( glaze will act as super glue).
• Instead of icing, you can use liquid caramel (it’s enough to melt sugar for this), applying it, for example, with a brush, just be extremely careful and work with gloves: hot caramel causes severe burns.
• You can make glass in the windows of the gingerbread house yourself: to do this, BEFORE painting, lay out the parts with windows on a silicone mat or foil, melt the caramel in the oven in a heat-resistant bowl (you can take caramel barberry or bon pari) and fill the windows with it. Wait for the caramel to cool completely, and carefully remove the parts from the mat or foil.
• You can electrify the house by placing a small garland inside (just remember that the switch must be outside!). Do not use candles as lighting!
• The gingerbread house can be stored for several months in a closed package. If by the end of the storage period it becomes hard, then place it in a tightly closed container along with a piece of bread and an orange peel, and the gingerbread will become softer in a day.

If you have any questions or suggestions, give us a call, we'll be happy to help!

Your Cookie Craft.

There are enough ideas, get inspired and create your own beautiful house. You will have a great time!

And I will do everything so that you do not have any problems with the test, or with the templates, or with the design!

Fairytale gingerbread houses are related to and, like gifts under the Christmas tree. Whether sold or purchased, each gingerbread house can be charmingly decorated with icing and sweets.

Let's start with the test for the house.

I. Cooking master class Gingerbread house dough recipe

First: building a house is not an easy task, plan at least 2 days for the house:

• on the 1st day you should bake the dough for the house and let it cool well so that the house is stable;
• on the 2nd day you can assemble the house and decorate ... Or you can decorate already on the 3rd day.

Second: buy in advance all the necessary ingredients for the house, think about lighting (LED is the most suitable for lighting the house). Make a list so you don't forget anything.

1. Dough

Products for 1 house

1 kg flour + for dusting
300 g cold butter, cubed
2 tbsp spices for gingerbread

If you do not want to buy a ready-made mixture, then cook it yourself according to the recipe:

35% coriander, 30% cinnamon, 10% cardamom, 10% nutmeg, and 5% each of cloves, star anise and allspice.

- for 20 g of the mixture

7 g coriander
6 g cinnamon
2 g cardamom
2 g nutmeg
1 g cloves
1 g star anise
1 g allspice

(Mix everything and grind in a coffee grinder. Store for no more than a month in a hermetically sealed glass jar).

2 tbsp ginger powder
1 tbsp baking soda
450 g brown sugar
3 large eggs
225 g syrup

Cooking

Put half of the flour (500 g) together with the butter in a large bowl.

Knead until no lumps are felt.

Add:

- flour (another 500 g)
- seasonings
- soda
- a pinch of salt

Knead and add sugar.

Eggs and beat together with syrup until a homogeneous mixture.

Add to flour mixture.

Knead with your hands until the dough is elastic.

The dough can be used immediately to prepare the house or, wrapped in cling film, put in the refrigerator.

2. Dough with honey

150 g butter
350 g sugar
350 g honey
900 g flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 packets of spices
2 tablespoons of potash (buy at the pharmacy!)
2 eggs

Cooking

In a large saucepan over medium heat, heat butter with sugar and honey.

Stir until sugar dissolves.

Remove from heat and let cool.

In a large bowl, mix flour with cocoa and spices.

Beat the eggs with a whisk and mix with the chilled honey mixture.

Dissolve potash in 4 tablespoons of water.

Add the honey-egg mixture and the dissolved potash to the flour.

It is best to knead a smooth dough in a food processor.

Wrap the gingerbread dough in cling film and refrigerate overnight.

II. Gingerbread house: how to make templates

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Prepare templates for the house by cutting out of thick cardboard.

Label the parts of the house.

Divide the dough into 4 parts.
On baking paper, roll out each part of the dough to a thickness of 6 mm.

With a small sharp knife, cut out the shapes of the house according to the templates.

You will need 2 wall templates, 2 roof templates and 2 side templates.

Do not throw away the leftovers - they will come in handy.

Place the cut out templates from the dough on a baking sheet along with the paper.

Roll out the rest of the dough again with a thickness of 3 mm and cut out 75 circles for the tiles with a diameter of 3-4 cm.
If you have the rest of the dough, then you can still cut out the figures of animals or Christmas trees.

Bake the house pieces for 8-12 minutes until the dough is firm and brown.

"Tile" bake 6-9 minutes.

Leave each baking sheet to cool for 3-4 minutes, then touch up all the templates, aligning the edges with the templates.

Use a small, sharp knife to cut out windows, doors, and other openings - for example, lighting will require a hole in the top of the side panel.

What else can be baked from gingerbread dough?

Christmas wreath.

Christmas trees and animals.

Various figurines.

And decorate the cake.

III. Cooking master class Gingerbread house: assembly and decoration of the house

To assemble the house, you will need icing sugar.

Products

2 egg whites
750 g powdered sugar

Cooking

Mix 250 g of powdered sugar with water until thick and viscous.

Dip each “tile” ¼ into the glaze and place on a wire rack to dry.

Mix 500 g of powdered sugar and 2 egg whites to a thick, viscous paste.

Fill the cornets - one cornet with a nozzle with a small hole and the second with a nozzle with a larger hole.

Cover the icing in the bowl all the time.

Glue roof tiles.

To assemble the house, apply glaze to the edges of the house parts and “glue” them, pressing them together.

The house is additionally “supported” from the inside until everything is well dried.

Decorate the house with icing.

When the house dries well, you can “glue” the roof and continue decorating the house using all kinds of sweets.

It is best to participate in the process of assembling the house at least two.

In the video you will find the most beautiful houses to follow. Enjoy watching!

SNOW - crush lollipops with a rolling pin, mix with coconut and powdered sugar.

MINI gingerbread houses for a cup or muffins look very cute! - You can build a small village on the table. These sweet houses can be served with a cup of tea and hot chocolate.

LOLLIPOPS can be used as lanterns.

And make a USEFUL house, decorating it with corn and other flakes, cereals, nuts, seeds.

Gingerbread house with TREES. To be able to place the 3D Christmas tree in front of the gingerbread house, cut out the shape of the Christmas tree twice. The first tree is cut from the bottom to the middle, and the second tree is cut from the top down to the middle. Then they can be crossed like a 3D tree.

Christmas trees. Cute snow-covered Christmas trees can be easily made using cookies cut into different sizes of stars. Glue them together and then decorate with icing.

... or such Christmas trees.

Modern gingerbread house with concave or convex WALLS. To curl up the sides of the gingerbread walls, place them on a pipe or flower pot immediately after baking and let them cool.

Gingerbread house as a BOX for cookies.

If the roof is held in place with tape, the house can also be used as a cookie box. Which present!

Gingerbread house with ILLUMINATION. Of course, the windows can be drawn, or they can be made like real ones... A romantic winter evening in the house will be provided by LED lighting.

Windows for a gingerbread house can be done like this:

- cut marmalade very thinly and paste in place of the window;
- crush the lollipops and put in the window, heat in the oven until the caramel dissolves. In this case, the first time it is better to underbake the cakes a little.
- boil caramel and pour into a window template (on foil). The rest of the caramel can be used to glue the house together.

Place various figures around the house.

Children will be very happy if you give them such a house, but they will be even happier if you make it together.

By the way, there should be no excuses that there is no time! - in the end, the house can be made from ready-made cookies and sweets .

Do you have a house or not? This decision will be made by your children. But know that the edible house remains 1 week.

And to help you - infographics for making a gingerbread house.

The tradition of making gingerbread houses began in Germany in 1812. Then the fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm "Hansel and Gretel" was published. Readers really liked the appetizing gingerbread house that lost children came across. That is why its analogues soon became an invariable attribute of Christmas and New Year's fairs.

The beauty of this festive treat is that, thanks to the spices, it can be stored for several weeks. And it is the spices that give it a special New Year's flavor.

Ground ginger and cinnamon are essential ingredients. But other seasonings can also be used. For example, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver sometimes adds some nutmeg and ground cloves to the dough.

Although the dough is stored for a long time, nevertheless, over time, the house will begin to get stale, so you should not delay the tasting too much. Moreover, it will be quite difficult to resist.

Ingredients

• 220 g butter;
• 250 g sugar;
• 2 large eggs;
• 400 g of liquid honey;
• 700 g flour;
• 1 teaspoon of soda;
• ½ teaspoon baking powder;
• 4 teaspoons ground ginger;
• 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon;
• 1 ½ teaspoons salt.

Cooking

In one bowl, mix butter and sugar. Then add the eggs one at a time and beat until smooth. Pour in honey and mix well.

In another bowl, combine all dry ingredients and transfer the mixture to the first bowl. Knead the dough, wrap it in cling film and refrigerate for a couple of hours.

Shutterfly.com

This amount of dough is enough for an average house 20 × 10 × 20 cm.

How to build a gingerbread house

This is the most difficult, but at the same time the most interesting part. It is best to build and decorate a house together with loved ones. So you will have a great opportunity to spend time together and develop creative abilities.

First you need to make a house template. You can draw it yourself or choose from ready-made ones. For example, download , or .

Roll out the dough into a large layer 0.5-0.7 cm thick, put templates on it and cut out the necessary details. It is best to roll out the dough between two sheets of parchment. So it won't really stick to anything.

shutterfly.com

At this stage, if desired, you can cut out additional windows and a door in the dough. And from the leftovers, you can make Christmas trees “growing” next to the house, build a chimney or bake.

Carefully transfer the parchment with the details to a baking sheet and place in an oven preheated to 180 ° C for 12-15 minutes. The dough is baked if it has hardened and turned dark brown around the edges. Allow the parts to cool before building the house.

At this time, prepare the protein glaze: it is needed to hold the walls and roof together and for decoration. Beat 3 egg whites with a mixer until foamy. Then, without stopping beating, gradually add 500 g of powdered sugar to the proteins. You should have a thick white frosting of a uniform consistency.

Prepare a beautiful stand on which the gingerbread house will stand. After gluing, it can no longer be transferred.

Then, using the glaze, glue the pieces to the stand and to each other. The easiest way to do this is to place the icing in a pastry bag, piping bag, or regular plastic bag with a small hole in the corner. When building a house, the walls need to be supported with some improvised means so that they stand evenly.

The rest of the frosting will come in handy for decorating.

Details can be decorated even before you put them together. Especially if you decide to build a large or custom house. But if you make it according to the patterns presented above, you can decorate the finished product.