Wedgewood Gingerbread House

MAKE

A glorious way to spend a day with children assembling and decorating this very traditional Christmas treat with a twist!

Step 1:

Mix together the flour, bicarb, ginger, cinnamon, mixed spice and salt. Preferably in a cake mixer, beat the butter, sugar, egg and syrup together until pale and fluffy. Slowly add the dry ingredients to forma ball of dough. Once all the ingredients are combined beat in the chopped nougat to combine. Roll into a ball and wrap in cling wrap. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Pre heat the oven to 180⁰C.

Roll out the dough on a baking sheet, lined with baking paper, to about half a cm thick. This can be done on a floured surface and moved across to a baking tray sheet if you would rather. Bake for 25 minutes until golden brown. While the gingerbread sheet is still hot, arrange your template pieces on the sheet of gingerbread and cut out the shapes with a small sharp knife. While the two wall pieces are still hot, cut out the windows with a little round cookie cutter and arrange your crushed boiled sweets into the window holes. Bake for a further 15 minutes to allow the crushed sweets to melt into the windows. Allow to cool completely before trying to remove the cut-out shapes from the gingerbread sheet. Give the cooling process about 2 hours.

Step 2:

To make the royal icing, beat the egg whites until stiff, then add the icing sugar, 1 cup at a time. Once all the icing is mixed smooth, then add the lemon juice.

On a flat surface as a serving platter or serving board (we covered ours with foil first), start to glue the pieces of the gingerbread house together, with the royal icing, beginning with the front, back and walls. Allow the 4 base pieces to dry for about an hour, then attach the 2 roof pieces with more royal icing.

Be sure to cover the royal icing wrap with cling wrap between use so that a crust does not form over the top.

Secure the roof pieces with 2 books while drying.

Once the roof has dried, assemble the chimney and secure to the roof.

Once the whole house is assembled, pipe royal icing over the roof, windows and slightly opened doors to create a Winter wonderland look. You can be as neat or not as you like!

Decorate with little silver or gold balls, white sprinkles and some gold dusted Macalettes if you have any.

We hope that this gives you great memories (you will look back on this as a highlight of Christmas!)

With love from the Wedgewood Team x