Welcome to How To Cook That I am Ann Reardon,
do you guys have a Christmas tradition that you do every year? In our house we make a gingerbread house every
Christmas and this time I wanted a whimsical candyland type look but not using any fondant
that was the challenge on this one… I’ll link you to a playlist at the end with
houses from previous years so you can see how to make those too. To make this one you’ll need flour, sugar,
butter, milk, molasses, glucose syrup or light corn syrup spices – I’ve got ginger, cloves
and cinnamon and some baking powder. Put the butter….sugar… and the molasses
and glucose syrup into a bowl. I’ll put all the recipes quantities on the
howtocookthat.net website for you and there is a link to that below. Mix them together until they are well combined
and then pour in the milk. And then all of the dry ingredients. If you don’t have a dough hook just stir through
half of the flour using the mixer then add the rest and stir using a spoon. Now you’ll need a template for your house,
there is a few different ones on the website, I’ve made a new one this year. Print it out and cut them out including the
windows and any pieces which are like this one that wouldn’t fit on one page I have put
a ‘join here with two crosses’ so cut them both out, match up the join here and tape
them together. Place your dough in between two sheets of
baking paper and use a rolling pin to spread it out into a large rectangle. remove the top baking paper and add your template
pieces. Use a pizza cutter to make the straight cuts,
now dont take off these pieces because otherwise the corners tend to burn but having those
pieces there just protects them and it also stops the gingerbread from spreading out too
much. You also want to cut all your windows but
again leave them in place for now. Peel off the template, if it sticks a bit
that’s ok just pat it down using your finger and bake those in the oven. Half way through baking redo your cuts and
scoop out the dough from the windows and that will help it bake through all the way through
to the middle of your dought. And then you want to put it back in the oven
to dry out. Once they are cooked and cooled spread some
dark chocolate onto some foil nice and thick, and then add your gingerbread pieces and push
them down, this will give a thin coat to the outside of the house. As it is starting to set run a knife around
the pieces and remove the excess chocolate, you can remelt those pieces to do the other
walls. Then when you turn the pieces over they look
smooth and neat and everyone likes eating gingerbread with chocolate on it. Cut a baseboard to the size of your house
and lay out the pieces flat around it. pipe some chocolate around the base and up
the sides of the front and back pieces. Then you just need to carefully lift up your
pieces and join them together, just like you are making a box. Wiggle and adjust your pieces until they are
all straight and you’re happy with them then let that set. Add more chocolate to your joins and smooth
it over with a spatula. Now For the small roof you need to cut down
the gingerbread on an angle so it will join with the big roof nice and flush. Just use a serrated knife and shave off a
small bit. If you want to you can also cut some gingerbread
off the top here to round it out. For windows I am using gelatin sheets, just
dipping each end into some chocolate or you could use royal icing and then pop that into
place. If you want lights you need to add them now
before you put the roof on. I want mine so sit at the top so i am just
going to add a couple of rafters using off cuts from around the edge. Once that is set hang your lights over the
top. I also have a battery pack going out through
the back door. Add anything else large that you want inside
now … this is just an ice-cream cone covered in chocolate and then m&m’s around. So when the kids look through the window it
looks like there is a Christmas tree inside. Now pipe some chocolate along the top edges
and put the two long pieces carefully into place, Before glueing these on with chocolate
I have put them on to check they fit nice and snug up against the top of the walls. And I’ve shaved off a little bit on the bottom
top edge so that they sit together. Add the two little roof pieces into place,
I have covered both sides of this in chocolate because you can see the underneath at the
front of the house. Then add the front porch roof… ooops … it’s
dripping down a bit, I’ll clean that up in a minute. Use chocolate to fill the joins at the top
of the roof and smooth that off using a knife. Now to make the garden. I want my house on the top of a hill. So I am using a big board covered in foil
then adding spare bits of gingerbread stacking them up to make something to put the house
on. If you don’t want yours up high you can just
make the house on a bigger flat board to start with. I can’t have a floating house so now I am
going to add all the rest of the gingerbread bits all around it leaning up against it. Next I mixed up a batch of royal icing and
you will find the recipe for that on my website too. It’s really easy to make. Colour it how you like and paint the outside
of your house using a new clean brush. Now you’re probably wondering why put chocolate
underneath and then paint it with royal icing? But wait a minute and you’ll see. Take a ruler and make lines across the house
so that you can see the chocolate underneath. Then scrape down between the lines to make
brick sized rectangles and do that on all of your walls. Now paint the roof with royal icing, I’m using
a nice blue for this. Renovating would be easy if you were giant
wouldn’t it! I’m adding jubes along the top ridge cap and
candy canes to the front just to pretty it up underneath there. I’m also just going to add some chocolate
melts that have been cut in half. Now I was going to scrape the roof to make
it look like tiles, but I’ve changed my mind so the chocolate under here is just a bonus
– the little m&m’s look much cuter. Then I decided to pipe little half circles
between them to make it look a bit like roof tiles. Moving on to the garden, it looks a bit like
a wasteland at the moment! I want some of the gingerbread pieces to be
like rocks jutting out so I am putting brownish grey royal icing onto those ones. And then I’m using the same colour down the
path and just adding some chocolate-coated sultanas for rocks all the way down. For the rest of the garden I am going to cover
the whole thing in green royal icing. This is easier if you do one section at a
time because I want to top it with coconut coloured with green food colouring. To colour coconut you just put some green
food colour into a bowl, water it down with about a tablespoon of water and then mix in
your coconut – it’s super easy. Use the back of your spoon to press it down
a little and add it around the rocks. Now I want to make the path shiny so it’s
a bit more magical. So I’m just going to use some luster dust,
this is sliver but I think I’ll swap it over to gold. There we go a path paved with gold. How magical is that? To make the rocks that are sticking out look
realistic dust on some brown powdered food colouring around them as shading then use
a little bit of black gel colouring just in the cracks. Then wet your paintbrush and brush over the
rock so those colours go into all the cracks and crevices just like they would on a real
rock. Once that dries it won’t be shiny anymore
and it will look really good. At this point I piped around the windows in
brown and added a chocolate coated door but I wasn’t happy with either of these and changed
them later so let’s just skip that bit. Add an ice cream cone to the garden and cover
that with green royal icing. Then decorate it with a few little icing decorations. Now add some lollipops, candy canes and sugar
sticks around the grass. And then using a leaf tip add some little
plants around the place you can even make these grow up the wall if you like. That’s looking pretty good but I don’t love
it! There is a disconnect between the seriousness
of the walls and the fun of the roof and the garden, so how are we going to fix that? I think I’m going to paint the walls a deeper
colour using some watered down food colouring and you can tell me in the comments which
version you like better, the one that i just showed you or the end result. Now I know I said no fondant but the front
door just looked too serious so I swapped that for something more colourful. And now I want to add some icicles dripping
down from the roof and some snow on the actual roof. In all the movies it snows at Christmas time,
here in Australia it is hot, it’s the middle of summer at Christmas! I’m going to put a poll on this one … does
it snow where you live at Christmas time or is it hot or is it cold but doesn’t snow? I’ve added a few jelly beans onto the bricks
too to make it a bit more whimsical, let me know in the comments which version you prefer. I’m putting all the leftover lollies in through
the back door and then sealing it shut! Click here for more gingerbread houses from
previous years, here to go to my channel, here for the latest video and here for a random
video selected for you by YouTube! Make it a great week and I’ll see you on Friday. Video source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X34yb_ju9Sw
