Roy Creates a Gingerbread House - Part 1 Making The Pieces

This week, with Christmas coming, Roy and I decided to start work on a Gingerbread house. We had spoken to lots of our family and friends, and they wanted to try making one, but weren't sure how to go about it, so we thought we should demonstrate - after all we have made lots of them before! We decided it would be easiest if we did the house in 2 stages, so this week we will make the pieces and next week we will put it all together. This has an added bonus, because the pieces get harder if you leave them for a few days, making them stronger and easier to put together!

Before you start making the mix for the gingerbread, read through the whole of the instructions. It isn't a hard recipe, but that way you will know exactly what to do and what you need. After all, you don't want to discover you're missing a vital ingredient!

You will find the template pieces at the bottom of the post. If you are making a full size house, like I did, you will need to make 2 batches of dough! You can scale the pieces to make them whatever size you like - you could make a little house, or make one even bigger than mine (if you were very brave!) Do not double the recipe in one go though - the dough is easiest to work when it is warm, and you will have trouble rolling the mix if you make too much at once. You will probably have some dough left over to make gingerbread men - perhaps you might like to make one or two to go in your house's garden.

Make sure you have clean hands. It is also useful to have everything ready, so I like to preheat my oven (to 160 degrees Celsius) and prepare my baking trays with baking paper.

To make the pieces of the gingerbread house you will need:

125 grams of butter or margarine (we used margarine, and either work just fine)
1/3 cup white or castor sugar
1/3 cup golden syrup
3 cups plain flour
1/2 a teaspoon of ground cinnamon (this is actually a cinnamon bread, and we have discovered that most kids like it better than a traditional gingerbread, but if you wanted a ginger flavour, you could use ground ginger instead)
3 level teaspoons bicarbonate soda
1 egg, beaten with a fork.
2 teaspoons of vanilla essence or extract

First, in a heavy based saucepan melt together the butter, sugar and golden syrup. Use a big saucepan so that you can just add all the other ingredients in (less washing up too!)

Next sift together the cinnamon, flour and bicarbonate soda (but if you don't own a sifter just stir them together in a bowl until they are well mixed!)

Add the flour, cinnamon and bicarbonate soda mix, and the egg and vanilla to the melted golden syrup, sugar and butter and stir together. Make sure the egg goes in after the flour or you will have scrambled eggs!

Scrape all the mix off your spoon and mix the dough with your hands (it won't combine any other way!)

Put the dough onto a lightly floured surface. I suggest actually rolling and cutting the pieces out on the baking paper, so that they don't stretch out of shape when you transfer them to the trays. Otherwise you might have a mat to roll it on, and then you can cut the pieces, lay the paper over the top and then the tray and flip the whole mat over. Press the dough out into a disc and lightly sprinkle it with flour. This way it won't stick to your rolling pin. Roll out the dough until it is about 1/2 centimetre thick. Cut out the shapes for your house. You will need two pointy ends, 2 walls and 2 roofs. If you want a chimney, cut out 1 of the chimney pieces and make sure to score the cutting lines. If you would like a door, either cut it out now, or score the dough, so you can it cut out immediately after it comes out of the oven. Be extra creative if you would like to be. I cut windows in the side of my house and a star window above the door, all before I put the pieces in the oven.

Carefully transfer to the trays and bake for 10 - 15 minutes, until golden and cooked. Remember, the chimney and little biscuits will take less time than the great big walls and roof pieces! Place the pieces onto cooling racks so that they don't sweat, and if you chose to make a chimney, cut along the score lines so that you have 4 separate pieces. You also need to cut out the door if you want one.

While the pieces are cooling, clean up the kitchen and wash up! A hint here, put cold water into the saucepan to soak - it makes it easier to clean. Hot water cooks the flour and makes washing up extra hard work!

When the pieces are cold, put them into an airtight container with the baking paper or waxed paper between them so that they don't stick together.

As cooks reward, enjoy one of your left over cookies, warm from the oven - Yum!