Make your own Gingerbread House
MANILA, Philippines — You can make your own Gingerbread House, even alter the design from a snowy cottage to a Bahay Kubo to make it your own. It can also take the form of a simple house, or it can be a smaller, more intricately designed one. It really depends on you.
All you need are gingerbread boards to cut walls and roofs into, and royal icing to glue them together. Other innovations and finishing touches can be achieved with small, commercially available biscuits, cookies and candies.
Chef Jackie Ang Po shares her recipes for Gingerbread Biscuits and Royal Icing to get you started on your project.
Gingerbread 'Walls and Roofs'
Ingredients:
1/4 cup Arla Butter
3 tbsps. shortening
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup molasses
1 egg
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ginger powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
Procedure:
1. Melt butter and shortening. Add sugar, molasses and egg. Mix well and cool for a few minutes.
2. Sift together the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt, ginger powder, and cinnamon) and add to the butter mixture. Knead.
3. Place dough in the refrigerator to allow it to set enough to allow smooth rolling out.
4. Roll out dough into 1/8-inch thickness and cut into measured walls and roofs. Make holes for windows so no cuts will be needed when you glue the pieces together into a gingerbread house.
5. Arrange gingerbread walls and roofs on baking sheet.
6. Bake for 10 minutes in preheated 350°F/180°C oven (if using regular no-fan oven) or 325°F/165°C oven (if using oven with fan).
Royal Icing
Ingredients:
4 cups (450 grams) powdered sugar
1/3 cup egg whites
1 tsp. cream of tartar
Gel color, as desired
Cake board as floor base
Procedure:
1. Combine powdered sugar, egg whites, and cream of tartar in a mixing bowl.
2. Beat until stiff.
3. Divide into bowls. Color as desired using gel color, not liquid color.
4. Transfer each color into a piping bag. Massage your piping bags when ready to use and make small cuts on the tips. Pipe plain white Royal Icing to glue together walls, roofs on a base “floor.” Pipe colored icing into designs and outlines of doors, windows and décor. Keep icings that are not in use covered in slightly damp cloth so they don’t dry up. Add candies or cookie toppings with Christmas designs for accents.
RELATED: Recipe: Braided Bread for Christmas
