Gingerbread houses.

This morning I was woken up by a phone call from my coeliac sister. She was reminding me that we had to go over to her place and make gingerbread houses. I hadn't forgotten, but I don't have a three month old baby like she does - I'm used to sleeping past eight.
We made HEAPS of gingerbread because we needed to make six houses. It was a real mission, but was made much easier by everyone's help and the Christmas carols playing in the background.
And did I mention a smiley three month old baby? Yeah, he made it pretty fun too.

Gingerbread houses - Although it looks hard it's actually pretty easy.
Before you start baking you'll have to make the wall templates. This would be so much easier to explain if I remembered to bring the camera today!

Instead of trying to explain, I made this little illustration on paint. Sorry about the quality, but it's so much easier to understand when you see it!Yeah? Simple hey? Just play around with the paper and make one whatever size you like.


Gingerbread: [really similar to gf Speculaas.]
100g of butter
1/2 C of golden syrup
1/4 C of white sugar
1 egg
2 1/2 C of gf flour mix
1 tsp of Baking powder
1/2 tsp of Baking soda.
2 tsp of ground ginger
1 tsp of cinnamon.

Heat butter, golden syrup and sugar in a pot till it's melted together. Add the beaten egg. Sift flour and dry ingredients into it and mix well. [Pour into another bowl and refrigerate for 30 minutes. - optional]
Roll out your gingerbread onto greaseproof paper and cut out around the stencils. Make two of each for one house.
180`c for 10 or so minutes.

Now, the icing.
Royal icing is made even easier by the use of a standing mixer. I used my sisters one today and it was amazing - Mum and I have decided to get one at the boxing day sales.
3 egg whites
6 cups of icing sugar
Whisk to loosen the egg whites. Gradually add cups of icing sugar, one at a time stirring with a spoon before whisking [thus avoiding the *poof!* of icing sugar in your face!]. Whisk until it is the desired consistency, pretty thick but still able to be pushed through a piping bag. If it's too thick add a dot of water or lemon juice.
Put it into a zip lock bag, cut a hole in the end and start icing! Royal icing dries as soon as it comes into contact with air, so don't leave it out.

Tip: Ice the wall panels BEFORE assembling the house, that way gravity helps you and you can play around with the decorations.

Ice a wall length squiggle of icing on the board, put the wall up in it and ice down the side of the wall. Do the same for each side until they are all iced to the board and to each other. If they don't really want to stick - or if you want them to be robust, stick them together with a few pins too.

Then get decorating! I found that there were heaps of normal lollies that my sister and I are allowed to eat. Although it was a challenge finding gf jelly beans, we managed it! Yay! But as you can see below, pebbles and chocolate are my favourites.


Enjoy!