Make gingerbread house yourself - instructions + simple recipe

• Instructions and Recipe: Gingerbread House
  • Ingredients and material
• Making gingerbread dough
• Produce components
  • The roof
  • Front and back side
  • Trees or animals for the garden
• Production of the casting
• The assembly of the house
• Decorating gingerbread house
• additional Information
  • The time
  • The effort / difficulty
  • The costs

In the run-up to Christmas, it's especially nice to work together with the children. The gingerbread house is one of the classics in Advent. It can be used decoratively or even eaten. The best thing about crafting is decorating. A crunchy house offers many creative opportunities for development. We will introduce you to a basic recipe and instructions on how to make the gingerbread house.

Gingerbread has a long tradition and is known under many, partly regional and protected terms. The gingerbread house can be decorated according to your own ideas. Eat gummy bears "> Instructions and Recipe: Gingerbread House

Ingredients and material

1. The dough

• 800 g of flour (750 g for the dough and 50 g for rolling out)
• 600 g of honey
• 125 milliliters of water
• 200 g of citron
• 1 tablespoon of cocoa
• 20 g of soda (available at the pharmacy)
• 100 g of orange precipitate
• 20 g gingerbread spice

2. The casting

• 400 g of powdered sugar
• food color
• 2 eggs (only the protein is needed)

3. ornament

• wadding
• coconut macaroons
• liquorice
• 300 g of coconut flakes

4. Tools and kitchen utensils

• cooking pot
• Wooden spoon
• mixer
• bowl
• baking sheet
• baking paper
• Greaseproof paper
• pen
• ruler
• Cookie cutter (animals or trees)
• knife
• hand mixer
• freeze bag
• scissors
• Chipboard or wooden board as a base for the gingerbread house

Making gingerbread dough

Step 1: First, pour the honey and water into a saucepan and let the mixture boil.

Without the water, the honey would burn, so the dilution is necessary. It is also a viscous mass to be made, which can be easily mixed later.

By boiling down, any bacteria contained in the natural product honey are killed. The mass must then cool again

Step 2: The orange peel and the lemon must now be minced very finely in the blender.

Step 3: Add the flour, the spoonful of cocoa powder, the gingerbread spice and a pinch of salt to the bowl. Mix the ingredients thoroughly. Then add the orange peel and lemon and mix well with your hands. By mixing small Orangeat- and Zitronatklumpen form - these should crumble well with your hands.

Before you add the soda, dissolve it in three tablespoons of water.

Put the dissolved soda in the cooled honey. Thereafter, this mixture can be added to the dry ingredients.

Step 4: Mix all ingredients to a smooth mass. The dough will have to stand for an hour.

When the time is over, knead the dough thoroughly again.

Produce components

Our gingerbread house consists of two side parts, which are triangular and two rectangular roof parts. You can cut the templates for the gingerbread elements from baking paper.

The easiest way is to make stencils for the shapes of the roof and the gable sides. Use sandwich paper and draw the rectangle and triangle. You now have some help to get the dough into shape. The triangle is constructed as follows:

• Draw a 20-centimeter long line (the endpoints are called A and B).
• Find the center of the line.
• From the center, draw a vertical line upwards.
• Find a point on the vertical line whose distance from A is 22 centimeters and connect both points. The found point is also connected to B.

The roof

About a quarter of the dough is needed for each half of the roof. The dough should be rolled out on a flour-dusted surface. The thickness of the dough should be about 0.5 centimeters.

It should be a rectangle, which has the size 22 cm x 28 cm . Place the dough sheet on a baking sheet. To prevent the dough from sticking, place baking paper underneath.

Preheat the oven to about 175 degrees. If you select circulating air, the required temperature is slightly lower at 150 degrees. The dough should be baked for about 15 minutes. Then remove it from the oven and let it cool down. When you have finished the first half of the roof, repeat the process and make the second half of the roof.

Front and back side

Half of the originally existing dough is left over. It is used to make the front and back of the house. Both components have the shape of a triangle and each form a gable side of the gingerbread house. The triangles must have two 22 inches and a 20 inches long side. Once you have completed the triangles, cut out one of the triangles into a rectangle-shaped door.

The two triangles must be baked under the same conditions as the roof and then cool well.

Note: Since the roof extends to the side of the floor, no side walls are needed and the construction is more stable.

Trees or animals for the garden

The remaining dough pieces can now be used to make ornaments. Knead the remainders well and roll them out to a 1 centimeter thick dough. With the Cookie Cutters you can now cut out the figures, animals or trees.

Of course, the gingerbread house also needs a door and a chimney. You can easily create them with small rectangles. The door consists of a rectangle and the chimney of four parts.

Bake the figures as well as the components of the house. Since the dough is thicker, it will take between 17 and 20 minutes. Allow the figures to cool after baking.

Production of the casting

First, beat the egg whites stiff. Now sprinkle the powdered sugar, but continue to beat. It must be a viscous cast. Add so much powdered sugar until the desired consistency is achieved.

Then divide a part of the casting and color it with the green food color.

The rest, white cast, fill in a freezer bag. Close the freezer bag and cut off a corner. You have now made a piping bag. Alternatively, you can of course use a ready-made piping bag.

The assembly of the house

• Splash the gable edges of the triangles with the casting. For this, give a sufficient amount of the casting on the 22 cm long side edges.
• Now put the two rectangles from both sides to the triangles.
• Support the construction until the casting has dried.
• Put the gingerbread house on a chipboard or a wooden board.

Tip: You can support these in the middle with heavy tin cans so that the side pieces are self-standing. Allow the gingerbread house to dry overnight after assembly and supporting the construction.

Decorating gingerbread house

Glue the chimney of dough together with cast. The cotton wool is suitable for simulating smoke. Put the cotton into the chimney and let it hang out. The doors are decorated with font.

Also paint the contours of windows on the gable sides. You can let your imagination run wild with the help of the casting numerous ideas. If you still have dough left, you can make small rectangles. Two rectangles attached side by side result in shutters. In addition, make a door out of the dough, which will be slightly open. She looks very inviting and authentic.

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Tip: You can color the cast in any color and use it for the ornament.

The sweets are glued to the gable ends and roof tiles by casting. Brush the firs with the green cast aside. In addition, deliberately applied white cast iron simulates snow and appears Christmas. Then fix the firs next to or in front of the house with the help of the casting. The coconut flakes are scattered around the gingerbread house. Pay attention to a random distribution, so the optics of snow will be perfect. Finally, the gingerbread house is finely sprinkled with powdered sugar.

additional Information

The time

For making gingerbread house you should plan an afternoon or a day. You can tinker with your children or grandchildren. The tasks taken on by the children depend on the age. Smaller children can definitely help decorate. If the sweets are hung on the house or the firs are cut out with the molds, so the children help with.

The exact amount of time is mainly dependent on the speed of work when decorating and assembling. The pure baking time 1.5 to 2 hours. In addition, there is 1 hour in which the dough must be before. The mixing of the dough, the kneading and the other preparatory work before assembly take about 1 hour to complete. Before you put together the items from the gingerbread house, you have to expect a time of about 3.5 to 4 hours. Keep in mind that the dough must cool down sufficiently. It is best if you make the dough in the morning or the day before.

Tip: If you put several sheets on top of each other in the oven or have several ovens in the house, the baking time is shortened accordingly. However, more than two sheets should not be pushed over each other in an oven, so as not to falsify the baking result.

The effort / difficulty

The difficulty level is assigned to the middle area. Anyone who has ever baked a cake should not have any problems with this recipe.

The costs

Below is an overview of the average costs:

• 800 g of flour: 1.50 euros
• 600 g of honey: 3 euros
• 200 g of lemon: 1 Euro
• 20 g of soda: 0.5 euros
• 100 g of orange peel: 1 Euro
• 20 g gingerbread spice: 0, 50 Euro
• 400 g powdered sugar: 0, 50 Euro
• Food colors: 0, 50 Euro
• 2 eggs: 0, 50 Euro
• Coconut macaroons: 1.50 Euro
• Licorice confectionery: 1 Euro
• 300 g coconut flakes: 3 euros

The total cost of the gingerbread house is 14.50 euros . In the bill, ingredients that lead to almost no cost, such as tap water, have been neglected.