Recipe uploaded by

18 ratings

Recipe by Jane Hornby

Subscribe to Good Food magazine - 3 issues for £3

Tested

Leave a comment or rate this recipe

1. Video tutorial: Piping techniques
2. Video tutorial: Making a piping bag
3. Video tutorial: Making a gingerbread house

1. Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Melt the butter, sugar and syrup in a pan. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ground ginger into a large bowl, then stir in the butter mixture to make a stiff dough. If it won't quite come together, add a tiny splash of water.
2. Cut out the template (see below to download). Put a sheet of baking paper on your work surface and roll about one quarter of the dough to the thickness of two £1 coins. Cut out one of the sections, then slide the gingerbread, still on its baking paper, onto a baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough, re-rolling the trimmings, until you have two side walls, a front and back wall and two roof panels. Any leftover dough can be cut into Christmas trees, if you like.
3. Pick out the most intact flaked almonds and gently poke them into the roof sections, pointy-end first, to look like roof tiles. Bake all the sections for 12 mins or until firm and just a little darker at the edges. Leave to cool for a few mins to firm up, then trim around the templates again to give clean, sharp edges. Leave to cool completely.
4. Put the egg whites in a large bowl, sift in the icing sugar, then stir to make a thick, smooth icing. Spoon into a piping bag with a medium nozzle. Pipe generous snakes of icing along the wall edges, one by one, to join the walls together. Use a small bowl to support the walls from the inside, then allow to dry, ideally for a few hours.
5. Once dry, remove the supports and fix the roof panels on. The angle is steep so you may need to hold these on firmly for a few mins until the icing starts to dry. Dry completely, ideally overnight. To decorate, pipe a little icing along the length of 20 mini chocolate fingers and stick these lengthways onto the side walls of the house. Use three, upright, for the door. Using the icing, stick sweets around the door and on the front of the house. To make the icicles, start with the nozzle at a 90-degree angle to the roof and squeeze out a pea-sized blob of icing. Keeping the pressure on, pull the nozzle down and then off - the icing will pull away, leaving a pointy trail. Repeat all around the front of the house. Cut the chocolate mini roll or dipped Flake on an angle, then fix with icing to make a chimney. Pipe a little icing around the top. If you've made gingerbread trees, decorate these now, too, topping each with a silver ball, if using. Dust the roof with icing sugar for a snowy effect. Lay a winding path of sweets, and fix gingerbread trees around and about using blobs of icing. Your gingerbread house will be edible for about a week but will last a lot longer.

Latest comments and suggestions

Results 41-47

• willowthe bunnybbc

  22 January 2009

  willowthe bunnybbc rated this recipe

  

  Flag as inappropriate

  Please let us know your name and the reason you find the above comment inappropriate.

  Your name: Reason:
• lucii3

  26 January 2009

  lucii3 commented on this recipe

  it looks amazing cant wait to try ittt

  Flag as inappropriate

  Please let us know your name and the reason you find the above comment inappropriate.

  Your name: Reason:
• katyfannon

  04 March 2009

  katyfannon commented on this recipe

  Lovely, I used 3tsp ginger 1tsp of cinnamon, 1/4tstp of ground cloves and was delicious.

  Flag as inappropriate

  Please let us know your name and the reason you find the above comment inappropriate.

  Your name: Reason:
• harley

  05 August 2009

  harley rated and commented on this recipe

  

  Made this and it was delightful, but used jazzies and chocolate buttons on the roof, gorgeous!

  Flag as inappropriate

  Please let us know your name and the reason you find the above comment inappropriate.

  Your name: Reason:
• Tracy Anne L

  04 October 2009

  Tracy Anne L commented on this recipe

  I was just wondering how long the gingerbread house will last for?

  Flag as inappropriate

  Please let us know your name and the reason you find the above comment inappropriate.

  Your name: Reason:
• chocoholic-sewa

  30 October 2009

  chocoholic-sewa commented on this recipe

  I want to make biscuits from this recipe, but read earlier that it makes a huge amount of dough. Could I freeze half?

  Flag as inappropriate

  Please let us know your name and the reason you find the above comment inappropriate.

  Your name: Reason:
• zoe22

  01 November 2009

  zoe22 rated and commented on this recipe

  

  This is brilliant, I just made it with my tow year old, but halved the quantities. Have made a very wonkey house and some excitingly shaped rabbits to live in it, cutters provided by her bakery set. Not overly ginger-y but she's loving it.

  Flag as inappropriate

  Please let us know your name and the reason you find the above comment inappropriate.

  Your name: Reason:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4900/

Your binder

• Register
• Sign in
• More info

Sign up or sign in to receive a £40 wine voucher, and to save, rate and comment on recipes. Plus, get our newsletter.

Ingredients

FOR THE GINGERBREAD

• 250g unsalted butter
• 200g dark muscovado sugar
• 7 tbsp golden syrup
• 600g plain flour
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 4 tsp ground ginger

TO DECORATE

• 200g bag flaked almonds
• 2 egg whites
• 500g icing sugar , plus extra to dust
• 125g pack mini chocolate fingers
• generous selcetion sweets of your choice, choose your own colour theme
• 1 mini chocolate roll or a dipped chocolate flake
• few edible silver balls

Search Good Food

Keywords

Refine your recipe search

Search filter options

Search by cooking times Less than 10 minutes 10-30 minutes 35-60 minutes Over an hour Search by difficulty Easy Moderately easy For the keen cook Search by cuisine American British Cajun & Creole Caribbean French German Greek Indian Italian Mediterranean Mexican Moroccan Scottish Spanish Swiss Thai Vietnamese Search by course Warm starter Cold starter Main course Side dish Pudding Search by calorie range Less than 200 200-400 400-600 600-800 Over 800 Search by occasion Midweek meal Dinner party Family favourite Birthdays Christmas New Year Mother's Day Chinese New Year Easter Search by chef Good Food Team olive Angela Nilsen Annabel Karmel Anthony Worral Thompson Gary Rhodes Gordon Ramsay James Martin John Torode Ken Hom Lesley Waters Mary Cadogan Merrilees Parker Nick Nairn Orlando Murrin Ruth Watson Silvana Franco Thane Prince Tony Tobin Search by diet Vegetarian Vegan Gluten-free Dairy-free Nut-free Egg-free Low-fat Low in salt Suitable for diabetics Search by magazine BBC Good food olive Search by servings 1 2 4 6 8 For a crowd

Difficulty and servings

Makes 1 house!

Preparation and cooking times

Ingredients

FOR THE GINGERBREAD

• 250g unsalted butter
• 200g dark muscovado sugar
• 7 tbsp golden syrup
• 600g plain flour
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 4 tsp ground ginger

TO DECORATE

• 200g bag flaked almonds
• 2 egg whites
• 500g icing sugar , plus extra to dust
• 125g pack mini chocolate fingers
• generous selcetion sweets of your choice, choose your own colour theme
• 1 mini chocolate roll or a dipped chocolate flake
• few edible silver balls

Your binder

Here are three other great reasons why to sign up:

• You get an online binder, where you can store all your favourite recipes and create menus.
• You can add your own recipes to this site for others to try; plus, rate and make comments on recipes, and share your views on our blog.
• You can sign up for our weekly newsletter (sent out on Wednesdays) - it's packed with recipes, special offers and competitions.

Tried and tested recipes from Good Food and olive magazines. bbcgoodfood.com

Recipes from the new TV channel and celebrity chefs. goodfoodchannel.co.uk