a gingerbread story

It all began with the idea of a competition. A competition between family and friends. A friendly one, of course.

This is the Great Gingerbread House-Off.

The brief: A gingerbread house should be built, from scratch, edible and breathtakingly beautiful with no limits concerning style or century.

the gingerbread house

With an engineer and designer combining forces, the duo did not rest from start to finish. With a prototype built and dimensions noted, the dough was made:

2 cups sugar syrup
1 1/2 cups muscovado sugar
250g butter
1kg flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cloves

Mix the flour, salt and spices. In a pot melt the butter and the sugars, then pour the melted sugar/ butter mixture into the flour. Be careful and let it cool before you start kneading with your hands. If the consistency is still too crumbly, add more sugar syrup.

With the dough flattened, cut the templates and place into baking trays. One tray at a time, slide into the oven at 180°C for 12-15 minutes. As one is heated, the others can be cut.

Continue until all pieces are cooled and solid.

When all the pieces have cooled, mix a thick sugar syrup to act as glue, combining the pieces to construct your desired layout. Make sure to hold in place until you’re sure they won’t fall! The thicker the syrup, the less time this takes.

To decorate:

Tons of glue! (4 packages of icing sugar mixed with water to a glue-like consistency)
A bag of Haribo Colorado sweets (infinite possibilities!)
A box of Smarties, silver pearls and sugar patties, meringues
Goji berries, red peppercorns, star anise and cinnamon stars

Use your imagination when decorating! We crafted lanterns by slicing licorice haribo sweets, moulding and sticking yellow, flame-like sweets onto the ends.

The tools:

A knife, steady hands and anything else in your kitchen you deem useful!