Episode 82
December 24, 2011
Gingerbread Houses
Whew! I didn’t think I was going to make it but I’m glad we were able to squeeze in this gingerbread house recipe for you all to help celebrate the holidays! I was able to make this episode with my sister who lives in San Diego and her family. To parents: I don’t know how you can bake with kids on a regular basis – I’m exhausted and it’s only about noon! That being said, it’s definitely a lot of fun getting kids to get away from tv and video games and allow them to be creative and actually physically make something.
You can make icicles with royal icing
This gingerbread recipe is fairly reliable. The only thing that is really tough about it is that you need a lot of dough to make just one house and few extra pieces (in case of breakage) so you’ll need to make several batches if you don’t have a large mixer. Also be aware that the dough is very soft and sticky so you’ll need to use a good deal of flour when rolling it out.
Just like in the 1 2 3 dough and cookie decorating techniques episode, we used jolly ranchers to make a window pane effect. On your side walls simply cut out a window or other hole and sprinkle in crushed jolly ranchers or rock candy. Make sure the candy goes all the way to the corners while piling it up in the middle. After you finish, just bake like normal. If you find that the candy didn’t melt all the way to the corner sprinkle in a little more candy and pop it back into the oven for a minute or two.
It’s pretty difficult to make this recipe from start to finish in one day. The gingerbread pieces harden overnight which makes it much easier to put together and the royal icing dries best overnight. You can kind of cheat on the gingerbread if you slightly overbake or oven stale the gingerbread (leave it in the oven after it’s baked at around 100 – 200 degrees F) but the best way is to leave in out overnight. I found that a medium stiffness royal icing works best. If it’s too wet it’ll take too long to dry and if it’s too stiff it’ll be hard to pipe and it’ll dry very quickly. When in doubt, err on the stiffer side.
Once the houses are assembled simply use a variety of candies and other sweets to decorate the houses! Just use a little bit of royal icing as glue. You can use a piping bag or dip them in a little bit of icing – whichever you and your kids find easier.
Here is the template for the gingerbread houses, the recipe for gingerbread houses, and the recipe for royal icing. When you print out the template make sure it measures correctly. The template will have the measurements on the side so you can double check to see if your printer shrank it down. The videos are below! Thank you for watching!
-
- You can make icicles with royal icing
