For several years in a row, on the eve of the New Year and Christmas, I have been baking gingerbread houses, but somehow they don’t come out very well for me, sometimes uneven, sometimes strange. For the last two weeks I have only talked about this and now ... I agreed to the point that my husband told me that there was nothing to do there, but it took a long time to explain ... I took it myself and did it ...

Well, yes, it seems simple for an engineer - a designer, but lawyers are not given to us ...

In general, I am still in shock how it all turned out like this for him, and after all, I dug up the gingerbread recipe somewhere, I did not cook for this. And he gave me a lecture that the gingerbread dough should be kept in the cold for a day, what happens in it ... some complicated word, I will not pretend to reproduce it. And in two weeks in the finished product, the gingerbread will only get better and ripen. From myself, I can only add that the gingerbread is really delicious. I was surprised that this amount of dough was enough for the house itself, for a large gingerbread at the base, for trees and a door. Probably the whole point is pedantry, if it says you need to roll 4 mm, then this is how it should be.

For gingerbread dough let's prepare flour, honey, butter, eggs, sugar, soda.

It is better to take brown sugar.

Put honey, butter, sugar in a bowl.

Put on a steam bath and heat until the butter and sugar dissolve.

Add spices. I would also like to say that such a mixture can be prepared in advance. Just grind all the spices in a coffee grinder and sift through a sieve. Add some flour and baking soda. Mix.

Remove the mixture on the fire and cool to room temperature and only then drive in the eggs.

Add the rest of the flour and knead the dough. Wrap the dough in foil and put in the refrigerator. The dough should lie for at least a day.

While the dough is cooling, prepare the patterns. Each piece will need to be baked in duplicate.

When the dough is ready, roll it out. It is important that the thickness of the parts is the same, and therefore it is better to use a roller that rolls out the dough of the required thickness over the entire size of the cake. Using these attachments, set the thickness of the dough rolling. When rolling, the dough sticks, use flour.

Cut out two parts of each pattern and bake at 180 degrees until tender for 15 minutes.

Remove the finished parts from the sheet and cool.

Let's prepare a mixture for drawing; this will require powdered sugar, egg white, and lemon juice.

Do not whisk! Simply grind the protein with a powdered fork and add lemon juice. The mixture should not flow and should be comfortable to paint.

With the help of a pastry envelope, arrange a house of your choice.

paint the roof under the tiles, and do not forget about the remaining two walls.

Trees are also useful, they will be like that.

Leave the details to dry for a couple of hours and when the glaze dries up, you can assemble the house. For this we cook a thick sugar syrup, almost caramel and we do everything quickly, the caramel will set quickly, it is not necessary to smear it all over the joint, it is enough to fix it in several places. Caramel holds very well and reliably. Although it can be glued to the glaze, it dries longer and is more fragile.

The house is ready. The aroma from it is so spicy and New Year's that you can't do without a Christmas tree!

The new year would be faster!

Happy and Happy Holidays!

Pie - belly friend

GINGERBREAD HOUSE. Part 1 - all the secrets of the craft.

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Hello dear hostesses. Today we will bake a gingerbread house. From the very beginning to the victorious end. The article turned out to be large. But this is because I told all the secrets and nuances. I put straws wherever a novice cook could fall.

I set a goal for myself warn you against all possible mistakes in advance so that you have a wonderful gingerbread house the first time.

You will know all the tricks and all the tricks. I will offer you a choice several ways of gluing gingerbread house , and you will choose the one that seems the most convenient for you.

And if you still have any questions, then ask them in the comments to this article.

I will immediately orient you in time, so that you know , how many hours will the whole process of making a gingerbread house take.

1. Dough kneading 20 minutes + the time for keeping it in the refrigerator for 1 hour (so make the dough the night before, in cellophane and in the refrigerator it will perfectly lie even for a couple of days)
2. House drawing on cardboard 20 minutes (you can also do it ahead of time)
3. Rolling out the dough and cutting out parts gingerbread house 10 min
4. Baking 15 minutes
5. Preparation of glaze for gluing and decoration(while the house is baking for the same 15 minutes)
6. Decoration details cream and culinary tinsel 10-30 min (depends on you)
7. Assembling a gingerbread house(20-30 min), with helpers faster (or slower).
8. Drying the house(10 min if my way)
9. Roof installation(20 -40 minutes, if you also use toothpicks, then quickly fix it)
10. Decorating a gingerbread house sweets, cream, laying edible tiles on the house (from 30 minutes to infinity, because there is no limit to perfection).

The minimum is 3 hours without rest breaks and on the condition that the dough has already lay in the refrigerator for the time allotted to it.

Many hostesses make a gingerbread house not in one day, but in stages:

• 1 day - dough and baking walls for the gingerbread house
• 2 day - gluing a gingerbread house
• 3 day - decoration, decorating a gingerbread house

If you want the process to be a little faster, then you can make a simplified version of the gingerbread house in the form of a gingerbread hut.

Or make a house out of ready-made purchased cakes (by the way, there are cakes for gingerbread houses already with carved windows), or from chocolate bars, or from large biscuits(photo below).

Step 1. Prepare the dough

200 g butter(mash with a fork or chop with a knife)

5 tablespoons of liquid honey(if the honey is candied, heat it up in a water bath, or very small fire stirring continuously)

200 g sugar

1 sachet baking powder

4 egg yolks(!!! before separating the yolks from the whites, read the instructions below)

4 cups flour(this is approximate, depends on the size of the eggs)

Salt and Spices of your choice, 1 tsp.: ground ginger, cinnamon, zest of 1 lemon, cardamom, anise

ATTENTION!!! Instructions for the correct separation of whites from yolks

We will need the proteins from these eggs for gluing and decorating the house. We will beat them with powdered sugar. In order to protein cream turned out as it should, observe the following rules:

1. We break the eggs with clean and DRY hands, and the squirrels should also flop into the DRY dishes. One drop of water - and all for a smack.

2. Not a single particle of yolk should get into the whites - otherwise the cream will not go into foam (separate the white from each egg over a separate dry bowl and, if it has separated without yolk admixture, pour it from the bowl into a bowl with other proteins).

3. Since we will whip the cream later, when we put the walls of the house to bake, then put the dishes with proteins higher so as not to accidentally splash water into it.

So, from the above ingredients, knead the dough, wrap it in plastic and put it in the refrigerator for an hour or two. Let it lie there, and we are going to cut out the template of our future house from paper.

Step 2. Cut out the template from cardboard

If you are not sure of your own architectural or culinary abilities, then you can make a simplified design of a gingerbread house - a kind of gingerbread hut (see photo above). As you can see in the photo, this gingerbread house has no side walls, only triangular facades and a roof. A very convenient option for those who prefer simpler design.

You choose the size of the gingerbread house yourself - for the above amount of test the height of the front of your house should be the same size as your palm. The main thing is that the parts fit in size with each other. How to achieve this, I depicted in the diagram below using the example of a drawing of a simple gingerbread house.

As you can see, the parts have the same size:

The side wall must be the same height as the side of the front (value b)

And the roof slope is the same length as the side side (value c) and the same height as the upper slope line at the frontal part (value a), the slope height can be made larger so that the roof hangs in the form of a canopy.

Step 3. Roll out the dough and cut out the details

Chilled dough spread on parchment or paper and roll it out with a rolling pin. Be sure to lay the parchment, it is needed in order to transfer our cut out details of the house on it to a baking sheet. If you carry the parts in your hands, they can stretch, deform and then, when assembling the house, will not match each other in size.

The thickness of the dough must be at least 0.5 cm.

The picture below shows one trick, allowing you to roll out the dough into an even thickness. On the sides of the dough, even before rolling, we put 2 slats in the 0.5 cm we need and roll out the dough, rolling our rolling pin on these slats (a foam profile from a hardware store is ideal as slats, a 2-meter profile costs half a dollar).

On rolled dough put a cardboard template and cut it out with a knife, very convenient to cut with the pizza wheel. You can immediately cut out the windows on the raw dough, or later on the baked parts (see photo below). From the remnants of the dough, we cut out figures of Christmas trees, animals, a pipe, a porch, a fence - what imagination will tell you, and what the dough is enough for.

Directly on the parchment where we rolled out, and transfer the figures to a baking sheet, cutting off a piece of parchment with a detail with scissors (photo below, left).

The baking tray must be level, otherwise the house can also turn out with curved walls (and try to join them later).

We bake the details of the gingerbread house at a temperature of about 200-220 gr. WITH(over medium heat) about 10-12 minutes. We take it out of the oven as soon as the cakes have already become yellow, but not yet brown (photo above, on the right). While the cakes are hot, it's easy to cut out windows if you want.

But it is better not to overwork for the first time, because the windows can simply be painted on the walls of the house with protein cream, as here:

And when you bake your next gingerbread house, you can not only cut out the windows, but also "Glaze" with marmalade or caramel.

Step 4. Making icing for decoration and gluing

Ingredients: for 1 protein, 200 gr. icing sugar+ 1 tsp lemon juice(or a little vinegar, or dry citric acid). Acid is needed not only for taste, thanks to it, the glaze is more elastic, tough, sticky.

If you don't have powdered sugar , don't worry, I'll tell you a secret, personally, I always make the same frosting with regular sugar. The main thing here is to have sugar fine crystalline, so to speak, finely ground (this is often found on sale), such sugar has time to melt in the protein during the whipping process. And so that it probably melts (even coarse crystalline), even before whipping, you can simply let it lie in a slightly whipped protein, it will melt during this time, and the cream after whipping with sugar will also work out as it should. Beat the whites, gradually adding sugar with a tablespoon, until the foam becomes fierce and stagnant as in the photo below. And you can also make icing sugar yourself, tar sugar on a coffee grinder.

In the photo below, I made and photographed 2 types of glaze in the first bowl of sugar, in the second of powdered sugar - there is no difference in stickiness, moreover, sugar tastes much better, and even cheaper. Therefore, I personally choose icing sugar- and you can try both and decide for yourself which one you prefer.

Process:

Beat the whites first without anything into a foam, then gradually add the powder over a tablespoon, without stopping to beat. As soon as the cream becomes tight and holds its shape, it is ready, even if you have not emptied all the powder. Eggs also come in different sizes. For small eggs, you don't need as much powder as in the recipe.

If desired glaze can be tinted by adding cocoa, or food coloring.

ATTENTION, dyes for easter eggs, are suitable only if they do not contain salt, or the packaging has the inscription “Can be used for confectionery". You don't need the salt glaze.

Because the glaze has properties to set quickly, then after cooking it is better to cover it with a damp (not wet) towel. And then while you are fiddling with the cakes, the glaze will harden, but if you work quickly (in the spirit of Julia Vysotskaya), then you do not need a towel, the glaze will not harden in half an hour.

Better yet, cook first one serving of 2 protein glaze(for decorating the walls of the house), and then the second glaze(for gluing the details of the house). It will be wiser that way.

Step 5. Decorate the walls

Even before gluing the gingerbread house, we paint the walls and roof.

It is convenient to paint using pastry syringe or pastry bag... But if you do not have either one or the other, then read the following note:

How to make a piping bag yourself in 1 min.

We take a regular stationery file (or a clean dense plastic bag), cut (straight or obliquely) the bottom corner to make a tiny hole, load a portion of the cream into the file and twist the top of the file with a roll (like a carpet) and fix it with a stapler in several places (if not in house stapler, paper clips are suitable or you can sew up with a needle and thread). Done - patterns can be extruded.

We draw windows, decorate with small candies, multi-colored confectionery sprinkles, almonds, glue patterns cut from regular gummy.

On one of the walls, you can depict a Christmas tree. Draw with white cream and stick with sweets, like toys, or lay out a Christmas tree using the mosaic technique of triangular gummies.

The roof can also be decorated before assembly, but it is more convenient for me to decorate the roof already on the gingerbread house itself. I posted a lot of ideas for decorating a house in special article , in the same place you will find many photos of different gingerbread houses.

Step 6. Choosing the base

Decide immediately what your gingerbread house will stand on.... This can be another dough crust, an elegant dish, a tray, a cutting board, a box of chocolates. Once you glue the house, you cannot transfer it to other dishes. You will only move it along with the base on which you will glue it.

It is undesirable to choose plastic dishes... Because when you want your house, glued with protein cream, to harden in 10 minutes in a warm oven (and not in 3-4 hours indoors), you cannot do this, since plastic releases toxins when heated, and for us this is of course not necessary.

Take the cakes and dock them on this base without gluing them together, see if the house fits on a platter, whether the details converge with each other. If somewhere there are uneven lopsided walls, then now is the time to trim them with a knife.

Step 7. Choosing how to glue the house

1. Protein glaze

For the protein glaze recipe, see above. It is convenient to apply glaze for gluing parts using a pastry bag or a bag (how to make a bag by yourself in 1 minute, read a little above), or just with a spoon.

If the icing does not adhere well to the cake, lightly moisten the bonding area with water using a brush. Glaze can be applied simultaneously to both parts in the places where they are glued, and then pressed to each other. Hold it with your hands for a while, and then just prop up the walls with improvised jars. And so, along with the jars, and send to dry.

To glue the gingerbread house together faster, I do this: I heat an empty oven to a hot, but not red-hot, state. I TURN OFF THE OVEN (that is, the fire does not burn in the oven !!!) and put my gingerbread house in this heated environment for 2-10 minutes. The time depends on the “hotness” of the oven. I open it periodically and check it with my finger. When our protein cream begins to turn into marshmallows (you will feel this to the touch, or the cream may look slightly browned around the edges) - gently take it out. Your gingerbread house is sealed with a strong, cured cream.

2. Melted chocolate

MELTED CHOCOLATE (melt the tiles in a steam bath, such chocolate glue hardens quickly, and the house does not need to be additionally held after gluing.

3. Caramel glue

CARAMEL GLUE : 100 gr. sugar + 2 tablespoons water + a little bit of citric acid.

The acid is needed to inhibit the "sugarization" of the caramel. Whoever cooked caramel knows that sometimes it does not crystallize into a candy, but the whole is sugared into a brittle crumb. And citric acid will not allow this.

Cook sugar with water at the stage of light bubbling, stirring continuously, until a drop of such syrup begins to crystallize on a cold saucer, that is, solidify into caramel.

4. Toffee glue

IRIS GLUE: 100 g sugar and 2 tbsp. boil sour cream in the boiling stage, stirring continuously, while a drop of such syrup, dripped into a glass with cold water will not land on the bottom of this glass in the form of a soft and tactile toffee.

When cooking, you can add a spoonful of cocoa to such a toffee glue - you get a chocolate toffee.

You need to glue the details of the house with hot adhesives, until the glue is cold... That is, either act very quickly, or keep the pan of syrup in a hot water bath (that is, we immerse a small pan with hot sweet glue in a larger pan with boiling water in it).

Bonding with caramel, toffee or chocolate looks something like this.

Keep the remaining caramel in a boiling water bath so that it does not freeze. It will be useful to us as an excellent glue for laying tiles on the roof of a gingerbread house. And if you want to glaze the windows with such caramel, read this article.

Step 8. Making the tiles

Now we glue the roof in the same way. This connection should be as strong as possible so that the halves of the roof do not slide off the house.

Some attach the roof by sticking skewers or toothpicks where the roof meets the front façade of the house.

I just generously impose protein glaze on the upper edges of the walls of the gingerbread house and as soon as the 2 halves of the roof are fitted, immediately along the entire ridge of the roof (top of the roof) I apply a thick layer of sticky cream. The glued roof can be supported on both sides of a suitable size with jars until the glue is completely cured. .

When the roof is glued, you can to lay shingles:

The shingles can simply be painted with a protein glaze, laid out with almonds, chocolate bars, crunchy pads, gummies, or whatever. You can glue the tiles for protein glaze or caramel glue. You will read more about the types of sweet tiles and how to install them in our next article, where you will also learn many more techniques for decorating a gingerbread house.

I will be glad to see questions, wishes and photos of baked gingerbread houses in the comments to this article.

For your reference, gingerbread houses and gingerbread cookies are symbols of Christmas in Europe and America. And although gingerbread has been prepared since ancient times, they became popular after the fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel" by the brothers Grimm. In the story, a brother and sister, imprisoned by an evil witch in a house of gingerbread and sweets, got out of the trap thanks to their ingenuity and resourcefulness.

How to make a smooth and beautiful gingerbread house? The easiest way is to buy ready-made cookies. But I recommend making the dough at home, it turns out to be pleasantly crunchy, with a bright taste of ginger and cinnamon. And what New Year without the magic aroma of baking pouring out of the oven? In stores you can find Silicone forms for baking the details of the edible house. But you can do without them, it turns out even more beautiful. For the construction, you will need patterns for the roof and walls - figures made of cardboard or paper, they need to be designed very clearly. The dough is cut out with a sharp knife. When decorating a house, rely on your taste and imagination: you can add confectionery powder, coconut flakes(looks like snow) or even M & Ms. But icing alone can make a house cozy and festive, and it also won't overload the structure. The main thing is to act very carefully and strictly according to the recipe. The master class is in front of you.

Ingredients:

For ginger dough:

• Flour top grade- 500 g;
• Butter - 200 g;
• Egg - 2 pcs.;
• Sugar - 140 g;
• Soda - 1 tsp;
• or baking powder for dough - 2 tsp;
• Ground ginger - 2 tsp;
• Ground cinnamon - 3 tsp;
• Ground cardamom - 1 tsp;
• Anise - 2 tsp;
• Cloves - 1 tsp;
• Nutmeg- 1 pinch;
• Salt - 1 small pinch;
• Honey - 2 tablespoons;

For icing:

• Powdered sugar - 500 g;
• Lemon acid- ½ tsp;
• Chicken egg whites - 2 pcs.;
• or quail proteins - 10 pcs.;
• Vanilla extract- 2 drops;
• Boiled water.

For decoration:

• M
• Colored lollipops for windows;
• Fruit jelly;
• Jelly Bean.

How to make a gingerbread house from gingerbread cookies, step by step recipe

1. First, we prepare patterns in the real size of the details of the house. We transfer each one to white paper or tracing paper. It is convenient to draw on a sheet of paper as in the photo below.

I have prepared sewing patterns for you with dimensions, you can simply download and print them. Then you need to cut out all the details and cut through the windows. We cut off the door most carefully, we still need it. The door handle does not need to be cut out; it will be convenient to mold it from the remains of the dough.

The cover and walls will be needed in duplicate.

2. With the finished project at home, you can safely proceed to the preparation of the test. Pour flour, baking soda or baking powder into a deep bowl, add all the spices indicated in the ingredients.

3. Stir with a dry spoon.

4. Break the eggs into a separate bowl, add sugar and move the soft butter.

5. Beat until smooth with a mixer.

6. Add honey, mix.

7. Transfer the egg-butter mass to a large container to the dry ingredients.

8. Knead the ginger dough with a spoon.

9. When all ingredients are well mixed, proceed to hand kneading. The dough turns out to be very pleasant, soft, elastic and practically does not stick to your hands.

10. Roll up the bun, flatten it on top and wrap it in cling film... We send it to the refrigerator for at least an hour, and preferably at night.

11. It's time to warm up the spirit to 180 degrees. The dough was infused, soaked in spices and hardened. We divide it into four parts, one of which we leave, the other three we put in the refrigerator. Roll the dough into a ball and spread it on baking parchment or tracing paper.

12. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin to a thickness of about 4-5 mm. Try to keep the rolled surface of the dough smooth, defects as on step by step photo recipe can be leveled with a spoon or finger. But if the dough begins to flake, you need to cool it.

13. We adjust the dimensions to the required pattern: cover, facade, walls. We start with the big details.

14. Firmly attach the paper part so that it does not slide out, and very carefully cut off the excess dough with a knife. We remove the pattern.

15. Directly on parchment paper, the edges of which can be cut or tucked for convenience, transfer to a baking sheet. It is very important that the details are even and flat, otherwise the walls will turn out to be crooked and the gingerbread house will not stick together.

16. We bake in an oven preheated to 180 degrees for 7-10 minutes. The details of the house should be slightly raised, browned, but not burnt. In the photo below there are 2 roof details, they are ready. Carefully transfer the parts with parchment onto a flat surface and cool.

17. Thus, we prepare all the details of the house. In the photo there is a side wall with carved windows, you need two such walls.

18. Cut out the facade of the house, the door and 4 parts of the chimney.

19. Round windows are very convenient to cut with a glass or cookie cutter. We make square windows using a small and sharp knife.

20. The part of the house that is not on the pattern is the floor or stand, the whole house will be attached to it. This part should be larger than the roof part. We cut it out arbitrarily, the edges can be slightly rounded.

21. We bake in turn all parts of the house.

22. You can cut out the remains of the dough using cookie cutters for Christmas trees, snowflakes or other New Year's paraphernalia. If there are no molds, you can cut it out arbitrarily with a knife.

23. To make the seams of the house smoother, the details need to be sharpened on a fine grater at an angle of approximately 45 degrees. Everything is now ready for assembly.

24. Let's move on to preparing the "cement" for assembling the house, thick icing will serve it. Beat the egg whites with the sifted powdered sugar using a mixer. If necessary, add a drop of water so that the consistency is very thick, but sticky.

26. First, we decorate the roof by drawing the tiles with icing. To work with icing, it is very convenient to use plastic bags with a fastener, cutting off a tiny corner for squeezing out.

27. Break several lollipops with a kitchen hammer so that not very small fragments are obtained.

28. Transfer the wall detail onto parchment paper. Place the pieces of candy in the window recesses in the wall.

29. We send to the oven preheated to 180 degrees for a few minutes. When we see that the lollipops have melted and the caramel has spread in an even layer, carefully remove it from the oven along with the baking sheet, trying not to move the part. Leave to cool until the caramel windows harden. In this way, we make the rest of the windows.

30. To avoid ugly joints, we cover them with icing.

31. Drawing with icing patterns on all the details of the edible composition (except for the stand). If the parts are cracked, you can glue them together using thick icing and wait a little. We assemble the chimney from four parts as in the photo. We are waiting for the icing to completely freeze. It is best to reschedule the remaining work to the next day. Or withstand at least an hour.

32. Lay a sheet of parchment paper on the work surface. Collect all 4 walls of the gingerbread house. We glue the joints, substituting a mug or glass for support on each side, so that it is convenient to support the roof in height on it. The walls are placed at a slight slope towards the base.

33. When the icing dries up a little, you can attach the roof, resting it on the mugs. We attach the chimney on top. Lubricate the joints with a more liquid icing for decoration. We give the structure a good grip, the icing should completely harden.

34. We remove the mugs, remove the parchment.

35. We transfer the gingerbread house to the edible platform, well icing the bottom of the walls and the base itself.

36. We cover all the joints.

37. We make "icicles" on the roof, decorate the chimney, install the door. Powdered sugar will serve as "snow", sprinkle it on the house through a fine sieve.

38. Here is such a beautiful and elegant, and most importantly - delicious gingerbread house turned out! If desired, you can turn on the light in it using a small battery-powered LED flashlight. Then the lollipop windows will sparkle with different colors.

This is how the gingerbread house looks from the back.

This photo shows a rear view, from the other side.

And this is a front view. The gingerbread house for Christmas is good in every way! The main thing is not to rush to prepare it, but to enjoy the process. And, of course, follow the recommendations below.

1. Flour is better to choose highest quality, with it, the baked goods turn out to be a little softer. In order for the flour to be saturated with oxygen, it is advisable to sift it first.
2. The eggs used in the recipe are C1 categories.
3. Spices should be used freshly ground, as after lying down, they lose their aroma and can acquire an unpleasant odor. The spices in the recipe can be adjusted to taste. With this set, cookies come out very fragrant, with a slight ginger pungency.
4. The gingerbread house is made from classic test on the gingerbread, the recipe of which you will find at the link. Ready dough for gingerbread can be stored in the freezer for about 2 weeks. In this case, the dough is better impregnated with aromas and acquires a more chocolate hue.
5. To roll out the dough evenly, you can cover it with parchment on top. Or use rolling pin nozzles so that the layer turns out to be of the same thickness.
6. You can make delicious dough from such a dough. chocolate Christmas tree for New Year by adding cocoa powder instead of aromatic spices.
7. Chilled dough is easier to work with. But the heavily frozen oil, which is part of it, will not allow to roll out an even layer. If the dough has been in the kitchen for a long time and has become very soft, breaks or sticks when rolling, put it in the freezer for 10 minutes.
8. The details of the house should not be very thin. Better to let the walls of the house be stronger and thicker, the rolled dough 5 mm thick will rise a little in the oven, the gingerbread will be softer - such a house will be stronger and easier to assemble.
9. Transfer the rolled dough to a baking sheet with parchment paper... Or you can even roll the gingerbread cookies on a baking sheet. If the dough is deformed during the transfer, it will be extremely difficult to glue the flat house.
10. Small irregularities in the parts are smoothed out with a fine grater, on which we grind off unnecessary corners.
11. Icing freezes pretty quickly, usually a couple of hours is enough. The thick icing used to bond parts together hardens much faster.
12. Little sweet tooth will love to decorate the house using their favorite candies and marmalade. Cooking with the whole family is a pleasure.

That's all the recommendations. Having tried the recipe once, you will want to cook the Christmas house every year. It is colorful, fabulous, aromatic and delicious. It really lifts the mood and creates a festive atmosphere. Enjoy cooking! After all, there is a warm family holiday and weekend ahead. Good mood, peace to you and Merry Christmas!

This recipe is amazing, the aroma of this house is so maddening, attractive that you want to eat everything at once! But don't do it! The best part is that the brightest taste and aroma opens in 2-3 weeks! Then your house will begin to emit such an aroma that you will immediately understand - it's time! If you prepare this house for Christmas, then until the end of January it will delight you with both taste and aroma! Immediately after baking, as soon as the dough cools down, it becomes tough, but by the time it ripens, it becomes soft, sometimes the roof even collapses - it will be so soft and melt in the mouth. This recipe for a gingerbread house is also suitable for novice housewives!

How to make gingerbread house dough:
(The recipe for honey dough was published in the magazine TORT-DECO, author Svetlana, personally tested, recorded from her own experience)

To prepare this test you will need:
500 gr. honey,
2 eggs,
500 gr. Sahara,
300 gr. oils,
50 gr. cocoa,
2 tsp baking powder,
3 tbsp. l. rum or cognac or 3 drops of flavor,
Spices - 1 tsp cinnamon, pinch each - cardamom, cloves, ginger, anise,
Zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon,
Vanilla,
1250 gr. flour.

Step-by-step preparation of house dough for Christmas:

1. Put honey, sugar and butter in a large container (heat-resistant). We put on low heat and heat, stirring occasionally. We make sure that it does not boil !! We are waiting for the sugar to completely dissolve - we take the mixture into a spoon and pour it back, make sure that there are no sugar crystals in the mixture! Remove from heat and leave to cool until warm.

2. Mix half the flour with spices, baking powder, zest and cocoa.

3. Into the warm honey mixture we add eggs, not beaten, but simply mixed until smooth, in 2 steps. Add rum / cognac.

4. Gradually stir in the spiced flour with a spoon. Next, start adding a little of the rest of the flour, but not all. We bring the dough to a state of dense and elastic. And put the dough in a bag in the refrigerator, lie down. This will reveal the properties of the test. Usually the dough is allowed to rest overnight, the next day you can start adding the rest of the flour. Flour is mixed into the dough until it is elastic, but not tough.

It is not recommended to stir in all the flour indicated in the recipe. I have had cases when much less flour was needed, and also once more flour was included than basic recipe... This is due to other ingredients, such as the quality of the honey.

In order to understand whether there is enough flour, you need to roll out the dough (no thinner than 5 mm) and cut something small. I usually try on a herringbone (Photo 2). If the Christmas tree has lost its shape (photo 3) - stir in the flour even more boldly! (Photo 4)

Photo 2 Photo 3 Photo 4

BAKE at 180 degrees. V original recipe it was written in 20 minutes, according to experience - no more than 10 minutes. And then, after 8, it would be necessary to watch so that it does not burn!

Well, we have the dough ready, you can take up the house! We take absolutely any house template! I did very small ones and did the template myself. If you find it difficult to draw a template for a gingerbread house, you can take a ready-made one in the previous article How to make a gingerbread house, a recipe for roe and gingerbread, a master class. or count by cells and draw the same one on a notebook sheet.

Roll out the dough, and remember that it must be at least 5 mm. Otherwise, then o will be very hard and will never become soft. We lay out the template and cut out the details. We lay them out on parchment.

And we bake.

If it's burnt ...

If during baking it just so happened that a little burnt, do not be discouraged.

We take a knife and scrape it, just carefully so as not to break the workpiece. If you get uneven edges, then during assembly the house can "go". To avoid this, you can also trim the edges with a knife, or rub them on a grater. Then your workpieces will become even and the house will be easier to assemble!

Everything, the blanks are ready! The dough is enough to make 4 small gingerbread houses or 1 large one with different decor such as Christmas trees, fences, etc. It depends on your template! The remaining dough can either be left in the refrigerator or frozen! It is well kept!

How to assemble a gingerbread house:

We will connect and decorate the blanks with sugar glaze.

How to make icing for a gingerbread house:
I take the following ratio: for 1 protein, about 200-250 grams of powdered sugar. Why approximately, because proteins are also different, you need to look at the mass. But it is not necessary to draw a conclusion whether it is enough or not immediately, as they began to beat with a mixer, but after 3 minutes, when the mass turns white, and if it is liquid, then add more powder! Powder should be used only purchased! Otherwise, you will come across large particles and the color will not be white. V industrial production powder, additional cleaning units and special equipment are used that make sooooo fine grinding. By the way, it is best to additionally sift the purchased powder through organza, then the glaze will be perfect.

It is necessary to beat until soft peaks, if it turns out too liquid, then everything will flow, if it is too thick, then it is difficult to apply and will not stick to the workpieces.

There are several ways to apply the glaze to the blanks: using commercially available pastry bags, using ordinary bags with a sharp edge, using a syringe, or cream attachments.

I have different attachments - but for those who are passionate I recommend buying them! Great potential for creativity opens up! Therefore, I will tell you how I decorate with these attachments.

The baits can also be placed in a pastry bag, but I consider it a waste of money. Because these bags are disposable, then just throw them away))) I propose to make cornets out of parchment (you have it, since you baked on it!)

How to make a do-it-yourself cornetic glaze bag:

Cut off a triangular piece from your roll of paper,

and cut into triangles. It turns out 4 triangles. We cut it carefully, then the quality of the made cornet depends on this.

and connect it to the corner.

We do the same with the other edge, bringing it to the same corner.

We wrap the resulting edge inward,

carefully cut in two places and wrap the piece on the outside to fix it.

So, we are ready to assemble the gingerbread house, we have blanks, icing, and cornets.

How to assemble a gingerbread house!
Cut off the corners at the cornet, insert the nozzle into it and apply the glaze with a spoon. We wrap the edge and secure.

We begin to paint the details, this time I first made out the blanks and only after that I assembled, but you can paint the already assembled house.

When painting, it all depends on your imagination, you can make a complex drawing depicting flowers or brickwork, I had a simple drawing accessible to everyone! I made imitation of tiles on the roof, and decorated the sides with simple curls. It looks beautiful if you cover the entire side with glaze, let it dry and paint on top, but it turns out a lot of glaze, and I had a house for children!

When the design of the blanks is finished, you need to give time to dry, you can drink tea))))

Then you can start assembling the house! You can assemble the house as on a gingerbread base, as well as on any other stand - I have disposable plates. They begin to collect from one of the end parts and sides - glaze is applied and, as it were, glued to each other. If the glaze is liquid, it will be difficult to glue. will not hold, if thick, then it simply will not be applied.

We glue all 4 sides, and let them dry - I gave 20 minutes!

We hold both sides of the roof for a while so that they do not slide down, and leave to dry a little. After that, you can start making snow decorations from the remaining glaze! Don't forget to do the kind of icicles from the roof!

This time my windows are empty, for lack of an opportunity to buy marmalade in Egypt. But if there is such an opportunity, we buy either single-colored large pieces, or straight in a piece (they are sold in large supermarkets, in briquettes). Cut off, or take ready-made marmalade, and glue it onto the glaze in place of the window! After drying, you can decorate the window with snow decor. You can also make shutters for windows from the cut out part and glue them in the same way on the glaze.
Sincerely,
Antonina Bodyagina
[email protected]

Many step-by-step master classes with photos on baking and sweets, dozens of recipes delicious cupcakes can be found in the section ABOUT TASTY! Bon appetit and inspiration!