December 24, 2016

Make Your Own Gingerbread House | Day 2


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We're making a Hansel and Gretel inspired gingerbread house!  This is Day 2 of our step by step guide to making your own gingerbread house where we construct the gingerbread house from the gingerbread shapes baked on Day 1.  It's house construction time!

Check out our previous post Make Your Own Gingerbread House | Day 1 to find the recipe for gingerbread dough, our downloadable gingerbread house templates and step by step instructions for making and baking the dough, .  

To find out how we decorated the candy house and get tips on which candies make the best decoration please see our next post Make Your Own Gingerbread House | Day 3.

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Make Your Own Gingerbread House Step by Step Instructions

Day 2 :  Make royal icing* and build your gingerbread house.    *Royal icing is used to glue the house and decorations together and to decorate the house and landscape.

Pasteurized Egg Recipe
Prep time: 0 mins Cook time: 5 mins
(For making the egg white royal icing we pasteurize the egg first.)

Ingredients:

  • 3 medium eggs
  • 3 cups water

Directions:

Allow eggs to come to room temperature by leaving out for 1 hour.  Fill small pot with water and carefully put eggs in.  Cook over medium heat until temperature reached 150F or 65C.

Remove from heat and let eggs sit in pot for 3 minutes.

Remove egg and allow to cool before using.  

Tip:  The pasteurized egg white will be a bit whitish in spots.  This is normal and will not affect your recipe.

Royal Icing Recipe
Prep time: 7 mins
Ingredients:

  • 3 pasteurized egg whites (see recipe above), or 6 tbsp/3 oz
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 4 cups icing sugar
  • food coloring

Directions:

Beat egg whites and vanilla til frothy.  Add the sugar little by little until incorporated and shiny.  Using high speed beat till soft peaks form, about 5 minutes.

Your bowl of white icing should have a consistency like toothpaste if using for 'glue' or piping outlines and details.  If using for covering a large area or for icicles, the icing should be thinner with a consistency like honey.

To adjust if too thick add in room temp. water, 1 tsp* at a time until the desired consistency reached.  If too thin add in more icing sugar, 1 tbsp at a time, until the desired thickness is reached.

*Tip:  Use a water spray bottle to add water to icing to thin out.  Much easier to control the water amount.

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Thick royal icing glues the walls 

When your royal icing is ready it's time to put your gingerbread house together.  For ease of application of icing use small plastic squeeze bottles instead of pastry bags.  Waaaay easier to use, way less fussy and easier for children's small hands to use as well.

Pack one squeeze bottle with thickish royal icing* (I just use spatula to squish it into bottle) and apply to the gingerbread wall edges (where walls will meet) and wall bottoms and build the walls of your house on top of your cookie base, using sturdy glass cups to prop walls up as the icing dries.  It's okay if the icing is messy here cuz you can cover it later with your decorations.

You should sit everything, house and house base, on top of a board of some sort so that you can move it around easily after completion.  We used a wooden chopping board.  Let the icing dry completely, a few hours at least or overnight.

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Decorative roof scallops

You must wait for the wall glue to be pretty dry before gluing the roof slabs on.  However, in the meantime you can pipe decorative scallops or whatever pattern you would like onto the gingerbread roof.  Let decorated slabs dry completely, a few hours at least.

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Cookies and milk for Hansel and Gretel

Also now, before the roof goes on, is the time to add gingerbread furniture (or even doll furniture!  I raided some stuff from my little girl's doll house) and your gingerbread Hansel and Gretel to the interior of the house.  Just stick everything on with a bit of the thick royal icing.  (I wish we had wired up a few interior lights to the house, that would have been really super cool!)

When the house icing glue is dry and you have finished adding the interior decorations to the house you can add the roof on to the house walls, again with the thick royal icing.  As the roof is sloped, do hold the roof in place for a while with a prop of some sort (or with your hands as I did) until the icing is set enough that it doesn't slide.  Assemble chimney and glue on to roof.  Let the house dry completely overnight.

Cover your royal icing and keep in refrigerator overnight.  Sleep tight and let dreams of sugar plums dance through your head in anticipation of Day 3 - gingerbread house decoration!


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