Christmas and New Year - the most fabulous and magical time, and this is believed not only by children, but even adults! Well, what can be the best embodiment of fairy tales and magic on the holiday, if not a gingerbread house?
But it can be created by a whole family, and then long winter evenings look into the windows, invent the most incredible adventures about its inhabitants and break off tasty and sweet pieces from the roof?
Does it seem like a fairy tale has already begun? Then let's rather be inspired by charming ideas and make your gingerbread house for the best recipe!
Well, we stock up a huge portion of spices (this is the gingerbread house!), Delicious decorations and a good mood!
Dough for the gingerbread house
Let's start with the preparation of the test, for which we will need:
- flour (1 kg);
- egg (3 pieces);
- sugar (200 g);
- honey (250 g);
- butter (200 g);
- soda (1/2 teaspoon);
- and exactly one-fourth teaspoon of each spice (cinnamon, ginger, cloves, sweet pepper and cardamom).
The first step is to mix all the spices in a spicy mix, whisking them in a mortar. We mix flour and soda separately! Then we take another container, in which we combine our crushed spices, honey, sugar, eggs and butter. Add to this container the flour, connected with soda. We knead the dough and send it to the cold for 3 hours.
And we have time to choose the shape of the house and make templates!
For the first sample, it is best to consider a simple variant - two side parts of a house with windows, a rear part, a front part with a doorway and two identical parts of a roof. By the way, it's worth to draw them on paper, then just attach to the test and cut it off.
And if you have coped with this task, then it's time to take the dough out of the fridge, give it a couple of minutes for adaptation in the heat and do not forget to knead it again! But the gingerbread house is already impatient to give a holiday to your family, so start rolling out the dough on parchment paper about 0.5 cm thick, apply prepared stencils to the parts and cut out parts of the house.
The final stage is baking spicy details for 10-15 minutes at a temperature of 170-180 degrees.
Caramel glaze for gluing a gingerbread house
Do you already dream about the moment when you will decorate the gingerbread house? But it must first be glued together. And the best caramel icing will do it. Combine in a metal container 100 g of sugar and 2 tbsp. spoons of water. Bring the syrup to a boil, reduce heat and cook it until light brown and viscosity.
Well, everything, if the baked items have already cooled down, you can take on the magic - to collect your gingerbread house!
Decorations for a gingerbread house
The main component of the magic of all the gingerbread houses is the patterns from the sweet protein glaze. And to cook it is very simple - enough to drive one egg white, 2 drops of lemon juice and 180 g of powdered sugar to a soft, but thick foam. You can apply it using a pastry syringe or bag.
And most importantly - to decorate the house, do not forget to stock up on chocolates, nuts, M & M's sweets, marshmallow pastilles, Oreo cookies, coconut shavings, confectionery powder and marmalade!
Let's look at the most fabulous gingerbread houses for inspiration?