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Simple (and beautiful) recipes tested by ana

A loving gingerbread house recipe (with no ginger)

A loving gingerbread house recipe (with no ginger)

I admit I had never seen a gingerbread house recipe since about a month ago, when I watched an episode of Australian Masterchef TV series when two competitors had to bake and build a gingerbread house following a famous pastry chef recipe.

(By the way, I loved the harmony that comes from this version of Masterchef. Australians are cute amongst competitors and there’s such a professional and pleasant atmosphere comparing to US and Italian series)<!–more–>

A couple of days ago I saw an Italian gingerbread house recipe prepared with an Italian shortcrust recipe. So as Lisa, the Italian blogger who posted it, I called it gingerbread house because I didn’t know any other way to call these cute small biscuit houses prepared for Christmas.

As soon as I saw it, I felt like preparing it to a friend of mine who had her house devastated by an inundation last week. I prepared and dedicated it to Lina and her family and, even if it is supposed to be a hard work, it wasn’t.

Sure, you shouldn’t do it if you’re in a hurry, but even if takes some time to be built and decorated, it is such a pleasant task to do. Let the child inside you come out and forget the rules. I followed Lisa’s shortbread recipe, so as her molds for the house parts (perfect, thanks Lisa!). For the decoration, I didn’t make plans. I just bough M&amp;Ms, 2 kinds of chocolate covered stick biscuits and let my child “talks”.

This first house of mine is far from being perfect. But, even for a perfectionist as me, it didn’t matter. To prepare and decorate a gingerbread house (even without ginger ;-)) is a kind of an inner process, you just have to let it flow.

Enjoy and have fun!

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Here you have my step by step: I prepared the dough, let it rest 1 hour in the fridge, rolled it out and cut the parts of the house with a knife and a pizza cutter.

gingerbread house recipe This big piece is the basis where I am going to place the house. Using a pizza cutter I adjusted the basis borders

gingerbread house recipe

The small parts are what I cut to form the windows – I cut it in two to form the opened windows. I completely forgot it, but you can put squashed candies into the windows holes. They will melt and look like glass

gingerbread house recipe I then used a heart shaper biscuit cutter to make signs that I’d (lightly) follow with the snow (afterwards)

gingerbread house recipe

I prepared the snow-cement with an egg white and about 250gr of icing sugar. It has to be very consistent

gingerbread house recipe Using a sac a poche with a thin hole I began to cement the walls

gingerbread house recipe I then added the front and rear and the decoration I created for the front part

gingerbread house recipe It becomes a house 🙂

gingerbread house recipe I made the snow follow the roof lines (roughly)

gingerbread house recipe
I added M&Ms, chocolate stick biscuits, a pine tree shaped green biscuit …

gingerbread house recipe

I decided to cover the part outside the basis with the snow-cement. I put some chocolate biscuits cut in thirds to resemble wood pieces covered with snow.

gingerbread house recipe

Gingerbread House
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
A Loving Gingerbread House Recipe With No Ginger
Author:
Recipe type: Christmas gingerbread house
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 130 g of flour
  • 70 g of potato starch
  • 1 Tbsp of unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 100 g of butter
  • 70 g of icing sugar
  • 2 yolks
  • grated zest of 1 lemon
  • for cement:
  • 1 egg white
  • 250 g of icing sugar
  • (these two ingredients may vary as it depends on the egg size)
Instructions
  1. Mix the butter with the flour, the potato starch and cocoa.
  2. Add the sugar, the yolks and the lemon zest.
  3. Mix it until well combined (I used my hands) and let it rest one hour in the fridge.
  4. Preheat the oven to 180°C/356°F.
  5. Roll it out and cut the parts of the house gently offered by Lisa with a knife and a pizza cutter.
  6. Place them on oven trays (2) covered with parchment paper.
  7. Bake for 15 min.
  8. Let it cool and build the house using a mixture of egg white and icing sugar.
  9. Buon appetito and Merry Christmas!


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