The tradition of baking gingerbread houses can be traced all the way back to the 11th century in Europe. No doubt, something so delicious and beautiful was bound to become everyone’s favourite around the world in no time! A ginger house recipe filled with so much fun is sure to unite everyone. So this December, gather the kids for an exciting Christmas party and make the ultimate Christmas gingerbread house together with our special recipe!

Ingredients 

For Gingerbread
• 600 g. of Healthy Alternatives – Organic Wheat Maida
• 4 tsp. Healthy Alternatives – Organic Ginger Powder
• 200 g. dark powdered jaggery
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 7 tbsp. golden syrup
• 200 g. unsalted butter

For Decoration
• 200 g. bag flaked Healthy Alternatives – American Almonds
• 2 egg whites from Healthy Alternatives – Free Range Organic Eggs
• 500 g. icing sugar, plus extra to dust
• 125 g. pack mini chocolate fingers/sticks
• Generous selection of sweets and candies of your choice & colour theme
• 1 mini chocolate roll or dipped chocolate flake
• Few edible silver balls

Template (for house) 

Instructions

1. Heat the oven to 200 C. degrees. Melt the butter, dark powdered jaggery, and syrup in a pan. Mix the Healthy Alternatives – Organic Wheat Maida, baking soda and Healthy Alternatives – Organic Ginger Powder into a large bowl, then stir in the butter mixture to make a stiff dough. If it won’t quite come together, add a tiny splash of water.
2. Cut out the template (download it from the ingredients list). Put a sheet of baking paper on your work surface and roll about one quarter of the dough to the thickness of two 5 rupee coins.
3. Cut out one of the sections, then slide the gingerbread, still on the baking paper, onto a baking sheet. Repeat this with the remaining dough, re-rolling the trimmings, until you have two side walls, a front, a back wall, and two roof panels. Any leftover dough can be cut into Christmas trees or other decorative items if you like.
4. Pick out the most intact flaked Healthy Alternatives – American Almonds and gently poke them into the roof sections, pointy-end first, to look like roof tiles. Bake all the sections for 12 minutes or until firm and just a little darker at the edges.=
5. Leave it to cool for a few minutes to firm up, then trim around the templates again to give clean, sharp edges. Leave it to cool completely.
6. Put the egg whites in a large bowl, sift in the icing sugar, then stir to make a thick, smooth icing. Spoon into a piping bag with a medium nozzle. Pipe generous snakes of icing along the wall edges, one by one, to join the walls together.
7. Use a small bowl to support the walls from the inside, then allow it to dry, ideally for a few hours. Once dry, remove the supports and fix the roof panels on. The angle is steep so you may need to hold these on firmly for a few minutes until the icing starts to dry. Dry completely, ideally overnight.
8. To decorate, pipe a little icing along the length of 20 mini chocolate fingers or sticks and stick these lengthways onto the side walls of the house. Use three, upright, for the door.
9. Using the icing, stick sweets around the door and on the front of the house. To make the icicles, start with the nozzle at a 90-degree angle to the roof and squeeze out a pea-sized blob of icing.
10. Keeping the pressure on, pull the nozzle down and then off – the icing will pull away, leaving a pointy trail. Repeat all around the front of the house. Cut the chocolate mini roll or dipped Flake on an angle, then fix with icing to make a chimney.
11. Pipe a little icing around the top. If you’ve made gingerbread trees, decorate these now, too, topping each with a silver ball, if using. Dust the roof with icing sugar for a snowy effect. Lay a winding path of sweets, and fix gingerbread trees around and about using blobs of icing.

*Your gingerbread house will be edible for about a week.

So there you have it – a classic gingerbread  home to nibble on as you count down the days to Christmas! Get your ingredients immediately & make the best gingerbread house for this Christmas! Visit the Nature’s Basket online store or head to your nearest Nature’s Basket outlet!

Do you know what else you need to have the ultimate Christmas experience? Some warm, sweet eggnog to wash down the tasty gingerbread! Check out our easy-to-make eggnog recipe  and bask in the happiness!