Yes, I know it is not Christmas but if the 6 yo wants a Gingerbread House for her birthday, then that is what the lady gets!
Even without the festive cheer, I did have fun making this. I like to give myself about 3 days to make a gingerbread house to allow for overnight chilling of the mixture and another night for setting of the icing, then decorating on the 3rd day.
I used this gingerbread recipe from Butter Hearts Sugar, and a lot of her decorating ideas too. I devised my own template from merging lots of internet browsing of other’s templates. I used a Woman’s Weekly recipe for the royal icing, and, yes, I use real egg whites instead of meringue powder. It doesn’t come out as smooth and glossy as the powder but, here in the UK, I have only found the powder available by mail order and it is pretty expensive.
I went a bit mad buying sweets for this cake. You can't see most of them because I filled the inside, like a treasure chest. On impulse, I also bought a can of this silver spray glitter, not knowing quite how I might use it. But, once I started, I couldn't stop and I ended up spraying (and re-spraying!) all the walls and roof silver. It helped to hide my uneven mixing and baking on the finished surfaces. The red roof tiles are string candy, cut into smaller lengths and fastened only at each end with the loops hanging loose. I loved the idea of making heart shapes from candy canes so I saved some from Christmas and also used them for the windowsills. I always run out of patience when I am piping icing so I didn’t make the edges as pretty as most other cakes, I just stuck silver balls along the mortar lines instead.
E was very pleased with her cake, it was what she ordered after all. Putting the candles along the ridgepole was fun and added more height and drama. They would also look cute planted in the garden.
Bonus: it was so easy to serve, just break off a chunk and grab a handful of candy.
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