These gingerbread cookies are not only delicious but they’ve got a nice dark color to contrast with the white royal icing decorations. These are not so delicate because this is the recipe I use to make gingerbread houses, and that structure needs to be able to withstand the test of time! A few days that is.
I love making gingerbread houses around Christmas time. I’ll actually add a photo of the first one I made here just for fun. It wasn’t a little kid house though, I was a full grown adult when I made it. Growing up in Brazil, making gingerbread houses for Christmas wasn’t really part of our culture. But I adopted it once I started getting interested in baking, because it’s too adorable.
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This recipe based on this one, from Joy Of Baking, except the spices are a little different and I use less baking soda to help prevent them from spreading too much in the oven and losing their shape.
Making a Gingerbread House
Keeping things organized will definitely help you not go crazy during the process. Here are some tips in the order you’ll need them.
1. Cutting and Baking the pieces
Roll out the dough
I like to roll out my dough on a floured silicone baking mat, being careful not to add too much flour, and frequently moving the dough to prevent sticking. After rolling it out, I put it in the fridge/freezer to chill until firmer.
Cut out and freeze shapes
Having the dough chilled and firm will get you more precise cuts and help you in manipulating the different templates on the dough without accidentally ruining the cookie with your finger or the knife. Place the dough back in the fridge/freezer as many times as you need. I like to cut everything out before starting to bake. Place the already cut out shapes in the freezer as you go along: in a container, stacked and separated by pieces of parchment paper to prevent sticking.
Find the link to a printable template of a teeny tiny gingerbread house I made to put on top of a cake here: Coconut Cake with Homemade Dulce de Leche.
Bake & Trim
Take the pieces from the freezer and bake them according to the recipe below. Have a pairing knife handy as soon as the cookies come out of the oven. Within the first minute or two that they’re out of the oven they’re still soft enough that you can trim off some strategic edges:
- The two edges of the walls that are going to be in contact with the front and back of the house, to make them extra straight.
- The “triangle” part of the front and back of the house, where the two roof pieces are going to sit.
You’re not trying to make them smaller, just straighter, so be careful not to cut out too much! If you cut too much, relax! It’s just a cookie. Just kidding, it’s the most important thing you’ll do today so be careful!! 😀
After baking and trimming, leave them on the baking sheet for a couple minutes to set and then transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling.
2. Decorating
Fill windows (if any) with caramel
If your houses will have windows, fill them with caramel before decorating with royal icing. I place cookies on a silicone baking mat and just use a spoon to take caramel from the pot and pour the caramel into the cookie cutout, being careful not to drip caramel on the cookie, just so it looks neater. Make a lighter caramel for this, just a light yellow color, so that the windows will be more transparent and the light from the tealight you place inside will shine through (read about How to Make the Best Caramel here).
In the picture below, notice how the window at the top of the church is lighter? Strive for that, not most of the other ones, since the caramel I used ended up a bit too dark and the light inside doesn’t shine through enough.
Royal Icing
I decorate the pieces with royal icing and let them dry thoroughly (1-3 hours or up to overnight, depending on how much icing there is).
For the royal icing I use the recipe that is on the container of Meringue Powder from Wilton, which is 3 Tbsp of meringue powder, 4 cups of powdered sugar and 5 Tbsp of water (I always add more). Just whip everything together for about 6 minutes until icing forms peaks and feels like a good consistency for piping. Keep a damp towel over the bowl to prevent drying. I like to put it in a piping bag, tie it closed with a rubber band and place a little piece of a damp paper towel covering the decorating tip (if you’re using one), to prevent drying as well.
When I’m making a gingerbread house, I like to decorate it with royal icing before assembling it, since it’s easier to make detailed decorations when the pieces are lying flat. Then I use royal icing again at the top of the roof to create snow, and to hide the caramel.
3. Assembling the House
Use caramel
Advantage of using caramel: The big advantage of using caramel is that it hardens extremely fast (now I realize that that may sound like a disadvantage to some people lol). So what that means is that you’ll have to be precise and quick to hold two pieces that you want to “glue” together and they’ll be stuck together forever within a few seconds.
I like to use a light brown caramel, around 340 F – 350 F, 171 C – 176 C), and you can find instructions on how to make caramel here. You can kind of break them apart and try to glue them a second time, but there will be a buildup of caramel there, which can look a bit funny or cause the other pieces not to fit as perfectly. You also have to be very careful not to burn your finger on the caramel, that thing is very, VERY hot and sticky, I don’t recommend it lol
In which order to assemble
- I like to do one of the walls against the front first (BEHIND the front, so that if you’re looking at the front of the house you can’t see the edge of the wall).
- Then the other wall against that same front of the house.
- Then I’ll grab those three pieces that are glued together, dip the two open edges of the walls into the caramel and glue them to the back piece of the house.
- Now I grab those four pieces that I just glued and dip one side of the slanted edges of the front and back of the house into the caramel and glue one roof piece.
- I do the same with the other side and it’s all done! If there’s a gap on the top, you can fill it with royal icing, that’s where the snow would collect anyways right?
Gingerbread Cookies
Ingredients
- 113 g unsalted butter (room temperature)
- 100 g sugar (1/2 cup)
- 1 large egg (room temperature)
- 230 g molasses (160 ml, about 2/3 cup)
- 390 g flour (3 cups)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp baking soda (up to 3/4 if the shape or the structure are not so important)
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp cloves
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg
Instructions
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Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of your electric mixer, with the paddle attachment.
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Add the egg and mix until combined.
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Add the molasses and mix well.
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In a separate bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking soda and spices) and whisk them together, then add them to the butter mixture in two parts, mixing until incorporated.
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Divide the dough into two, place each mount of dough on a piece of plastic wrap and shape them into disks.
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Refrigerate them for about two hours or longer (even until the next day or two), until you can’t easily leave an indentation when you press it with your finger.
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Preheat the oven to 350 F (180 C).
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To roll out the dough, you can do it between two pieces of parchment paper, or on a floured counter. I usually do it on a floured silicone baking mat, being careful not to add too much flour, and frequently moving the dough to prevent sticking. That way, by the time I’m done rolling it out it’s easy to transfer it to a baking sheet and place it in the freezer to chill the dough before cutting out shapes.
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Freeze the shapes for 20 minutes before baking.
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Place the cut out cookies on a baking sheet lined with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper and bake them for about 10-12 minutes.
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Let them cool completely on a wire rack, then store them in an airtight container.
Mariana
I love these caramel windows!
admin
Thank you so much! 🙂