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Mini Gingerbread House Recipe

How to make the perfectly spiced gingerbread biscuits for the festive season. These cute gingerbread houses are great as place names on the table, gifting and as mug toppers.
Prep Time20 minutes
Cook Time10 minutes
Chilling time1 hour
Servings: 10 houses

Ingredients

For the Gingerbread Dough

  • 125 g softened salted butter
  • 175 g light muscovado sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 4 tbsp golden syrup
  • 350 g plain flour
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 2 tsp ground ginger
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp chai spice or all-spice mix

For the Royal Icing

  • 1 tbsp meringue powder
  • 4 –5 tbsp water
  • 335 g icing sugar
  • A couple of drops of orange essence optional

For assembling

  • Granulated sugar or Royal icing

Instructions

Make the Gingerbread Dough

  • Line two baking trays with parchment or lining paste ( see notes on lining paste)
  • In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Add in the golden syrup and egg and combine
  • Add in the flour, bicarb, cinnamon, ginger & chai to the wet mixture to the flour mixture and mix with a spoon or Knead lightly to form a smooth dough.
  • Cover in cling film and chill for about an hour.
  • Preheat the oven to 180 C.

Roll & Cut the Mini Houses

  • Lightly flour your work surface and roll the dough to about 3–4mm thickness.
  • Use mini gingerbread house templates or cutters to cut out your houses. For each house you need 2 roof pieces, 2 side walls and 2 front/back pieces (yes lots of cutting and calculations). Leave about 1 cm in between each cut out.
  • Trim and remove the excess dough edges so you only have the cut out houses left on your baking tray. If you are rolling them on a work top , Transfer the cut outs onto the prepared trays, spacing them slightly apart. Combine the trimmings and roll them out again and repeat
  • Bake for 8–10 minutes, or until the edges turn golden. When they come out of the oven the houses will be soft so you can trim any edges with a shape knife. I like to leave mine rustic
  • Let the pieces cool completely on a wire rack—they firm up as they cool.

Make the Royal Icing

  • In a mixing bowl, combine the meringue powder and water, whisking until frothy.
  • Gradually add the icing sugar, whisking until thick, smooth, and pipeable.
  • If needed, adjust consistency: More icing sugar = thicker “glue” and More water = smoother piping icing

Assemble the Houses

  • Melt sugar on low heat in a shallow wide pan.
  • Build your house by dipping the edges into the melted sugar then sticking it with the appropriate side * be careful because the sugar is hot. It is easy to start with the sides then the attach the roof pieces. If you don’t want to use melted sugar to assemble the houses, you can use the royal icing. Let them set

Decorate

  • Add icing into a piping bag fitted and either add a small tip at the end or cut a little bit off to make a hole.
  • Pipe snowy rooftops, door outlines, icicles, or tiny window frames. Add sprinkles, sugar pearls, or whatever festive patterns you like.

Notes

I prefer to roll out my biscuits onto a baking tray and trim it there. This way i do not need to lift the cookies every time and change their shape. I use https://mostlyfoodandtravel.com/best-baking-hack-for-perfect-cake-release/ . You only need a thin layer.