Build amazing holiday traditions with your family by assembling and decorating a gingerbread house together! A fun and festive project to do with the kids, building a gingerbread house is a great activity that brings out everyone's creativity and makes for an amazing home-made gift too.

A gingerbread house is only as good as the ‘glue’ that holds it together. While there’s no magic icing that will work for every single person in every single circumstance, royal icing would be our recommendation – plus, it’s edible! There's an icing mix available for keeping it super simple or you could follow our recipe here.

Gingerbread House Icing Tips & Tricks:

• When it comes to building gingerbread houses, patience is a virtue! Give your gingerbread house plenty of time to dry after assembly before adding decorations. You can use melted chocolate to 'glue' your structure if you're pressed for time, which will dry faster than royal icing.
• Temperature can greatly affect the longevity of your gingerbread house. If your kitchen is warm or the temperature is humid, the icing may melt or fall off your gingerbread house.
• Keep any icing covered when not in use to avoid drying.
• Colour your royal icing just as you would regular icing but make sure to use a water-base colour like Wilton Gel colour.
• Keep all utensils completely grease-free for proper icing consistency.
• Since this icing is made with Meringue Powder and not raw egg whites, it is safe to eat!
• Store remaining icing in an airtight container for up to two weeks. Before reusing, re-whip using a paddle attachment on low speed until it’s back to the correct consistency.

Gingerbread Recipe

INGREDIENTS

75g Chelsea brown sugar, sieved
2Tbsp golden syrup
1Tbsp treacle
1tsp cinnamon
tsp ginger
1 pinch ground cloves
Finely grated rind ½ orange
100g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
½ tsp baking soda
225g standard flour

METHOD

Preheat oven to 180°C. Place sugar, syrup, treacle, spices, rind and 1 tbsp of water together in a large saucepan. Bring to boiling point, stirring all the time

Remove from the heat and stir in butter and soda. Stir in flour, gradually, until you have smooth manageable dough – add a little more flour, if you think it needs it.

Leave the dough – covered in the fridge to become firm, approx 30 minutes. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to 3mm thick. Cut out gingerbread house shapes using your Wilton Cutting set, but leave the cut pieces in the rolled out dough and put it all back in the fridge to chill again (leaving your cut pieces in the rolled out dough prevents them from 'warping/spreading' as they chill).

When it's chilled, take your cut pieces out of the rolled out dough and arrange onto baking sheets lined with baking paper. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes or when biscuits feel firm when lightly touched, your time can vary as the pieces are large. Leave biscuits on the baking sheet for 5 minutes once out of the oven before moving to a wire cooling rack.