Ginger Bread House

I have always wanted to make a Ginger Bread House. And if i say always I mean for years, around every Christmas I will be like this year I will make one, but then I will be busy and the christmas season will be gone and then I will say to myself and my family well I will make next year then.
I must have told every year that I want / will make a ginger bread house, that even Shyama knows that is something I find beautiful and I want to make.

So the first year Shyama was in College ( the city she lives has this beautiful baking / kitcenware store, which I always go when ever I visit her) so as she knows her mom likes baking she went to this shop for looking for a New years presents and she saw the cutter to make Ginger bread house and that was one of her gifts for me for my New years from her . And this happend in 2009 and two chirstmas came after getting the present and I didn't use them.
So as you can see this year I made them :-)

I must say I had so much fun in making them and I loved doing all the sweet decorations, I was like a small child.
Hans saw me all excited doing this and he Now calls me the builder of Hansel and Gretel house :-)

In   my town there is a famous pasty shop and their bakes are so delicious and so good.
Every year during this season they start selling these ginger bread house and me naturally always watch their collection when I pass.

So i will be outside the shop window watching :-) together with other people who passes by as everybody stop there and watch these beautiful houses.
They all say wow it is beautiful but then they also remark it is very expensive isn't it for 32 euros and the houses are half the size or more less of the house I made.

Gingerbread is a sweet food-product flavored with ginger and typically using honey or molasses (treacle) rather than just sugar. Gingerbread foods vary, ranging from a soft, moist loaf cake to something close to a ginger biscuit. The different types likely share a common origin.

The harder German-style gingerbread is often used to build gingerbread houses similar to the "witch's house" encountered by Hansel and Gretel. (The witch's name is Frau Pfefferkuchenhaus; "pfefferkuchenhaus" is the German name for "gingerbread house".) These houses, covered with a variety of candies and icing, are popular Christmas decorations, often built by children with the help of their parents

 I didn't had to use their template as I had one here at home. And I have give the decoration idea they have given but as you can see you don't have to stick to any particular decoration you can decorate accodring to your liking.



The recipe for the Ginger Bread is from BBC Good Food.

I would have taken more pictures how to make them, but mt hands were sticky Ididn't want my camera getting stickt too.



For the Ginger bread
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

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.
As you can see I am posting in my Name Finla. Removed the Happy Cook :-)