Gingerbread House

This recipe is from the BBC Good Food magazine. I halved the recipe below and managed to make two gingerbread houses, 3 large gingerbread men, and about 15 smaller biscuits. The dough can be frozen and so can the baked biscuits so if there is too much for you just now dig the rest out later!

Ingredients

1Kg Plain Flour (plus extra for dusting)

300g Cold Butter

2 tbsp Mixed Spice

2tbsp Ground Ginger

1tbsp Bicarbonate of Soda

450g Light Soft Brown Sugar

3 Large Eggs

225g Golden Syrup

300g Royal Icing Sugar

Sweets, Edible Glitter of your choice to decorate.

Cut out a template for your house on baking paper. Make sure you get your measurements correct or google gingerbread house template to find one you like.

Pre-heat oven to 180oC. Then put half of the flour in a food processor with the butter and mix until there are no lumps. In another large bowl mix the remaining flour, spices, bicarb and a pinch of salt. Tip the butter and flour mix into this and stir in the sugar. Use your fingers or food processor to make the mixture look like bread crumbs. Whisk eggs and golden syrup together and pour into the flour mixing with a wooden spoon to combine then get your hands in to bring it all together.

Dust your worktop thoroughly then roll the dough out in sections at a time to about 1/2cm. Cut out your house shapes. Don't at this point cut out windows or doors. Bake for 8-10 mins until a lovely golden brown. When you take them out of the oven put your template back onto the shapes and cut any excess off and cut any windows doors you want. Let them cool.

Then decorate the individual pieces. A spare pair of hands is useful at this point to help hold your walls up. I recommend putting some icing on the bottom of your pieces so they will stick to the tray and help stay in place. And there you have it a gingerbread house!