Halloween has passed and the Christmas season is well and truly upon us - because if the annual John Lewis advert doesn’t mark the start of the season then what does?
At this joyous time of year, there are so many wonderful activities to get children of varying ages involved with to get into the festive spirit.
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again. Cooking and baking are wonderful activities for children for many reasons:
It teaches useful life skills and basic cooking for later in life,
Participation in food preparation creates an organic interest in new cuisines and ingredients
Measuring and preparation teaches mathematical skills
Decoration encourages creativity
And finally, cooking is a fun way for children to bond with you and make lasting, positive memories.
One of our favourite bakes to bring the family together, is building a gingerbread house. Not least because it fills our homes with that cinnamon-y scent!
In this post, we’re sharing a tried and tested gingerbread recipe (including a fool-proof template for construction) as well as our top tips for decorating, to help you construct the ultimate gingerbread house with your children this Christmas.
RECIPE
Gingerbread Recipe
90g golden syrup
175g soft dark muscovado sugar
60g butter
350g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
1tsp ground ginger
1tsp ground mixed spice
1 medium egg
To Decorate
500g packet royal icing sugar
3x Sachets of egg white powder
selection of sweets, to decorate (see our suggestions below)
Method
To begin making the gingerbread, melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a pan over a gentle heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. It is crucial to melt the ingredients slowly to ensure they don’t burn and leave you with a bitter gingerbread.
Once cooked, remove from the heat to allow the mixture to cool slightly while you prepare your dry ingredients.
Sift the flour, baking powder, ginger and spice into a bowl.
Slowly mix in the cooled golden syrup mixture and the egg to form a dough.
Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface so it is approximately 0.5cm in thickness.
Once rolled out, use the template below to cut out the sections for your house.
Put the pieces of dough onto a lined baking tray and bake for 12-15 mins or until slightly browned. Leave to cool, then turn onto a wire rack to cool.
Make Up Your Royal Icing
While the pieces are cooling, make up the royal icing using 9-10tbsp water, 3 sachets of egg white powder and 480g icing sugar and fill a piping bag. Use the royal icing mixture to stick the cooled gingerbread house pieces together and decorate as you wish. We’ve included some of our favourite decorative ideas as inspiration
Template:
The below template is also available for download as a printable A4 PDF, or you’re welcome to design and cut out your own template!
(If you want to add cut-out windows in your design, use the second template.)
DECORATION
Here’s some top tips for how to decorate your gingerbread house for maximum impact!
Cut out little squares in the side walls of your gingerbread before putting them in the oven, and fill them with crushed hard boiled sweets. As they bake, the sweets will melt and form a beautiful stained-glass effect. Extra tip: you can also lay battery-operated fairy lights inside the house once complete to make the windows light up.
If you don’t fancy piping on tiles by hand, you could use the royal icing as glue and stick chocolate buttons, overlapping one another, or your favourite sweets as roof tiles instead.
Create a clever log cabin effect using pretzel sticks to line the outside of your house.
Treat yourself to some 99p Flakes and, cutting them into smaller sections, pile them up outside your gingerbread house to create a pile of firewood / logs on the porch.
Create a cute marshmallow snowman using a selection of marshmallows, a cocktail stick to hold them all together and some edible pens to draw on the nose and eyes.
When you’re done assembling everything, pour some icing sugar into a sieve and gently dust a layer over the top of everything to give the effect of a light dusting of snow.
Finally, get your hands on some cadbury’s chocolate reindeer - because what’s Christmas without Santa’s reindeer on the roof!
As an added bonus, you can use up any leftover cookie dough to make gingerbread people, trees or just tasty snacks. This handy set of festive cutters is inexpensive and great to have on hand for any excess!