it's that time of year again when we make a gingerbread house.

This one has lights and candy inside and plenty of chocolate covering the roof.

For the gingerbread itself, you'll need sugar, milk, ground ginger, cloves, cinnamon, glucose

syrup, molasses, bicarb, flour and butter.

Add the glucose syrup to the butter and you can swap that for light corn syrup if you

can't get glucose syrup.

And I'll put all of the recipe quantities on my howtocookthat.net website for you and

I'll link to that below.

Pour in the molasses and I am doubling this recipe because I want to make two houses but

you can just make the normal quantity if you're only making one.

And then add the sugar.

Mix that all together.

Now if you don't have a stand mixer don't worry you can do this with a spoon and to

make it easier for you with this recipe you can actually just warm up the mixture in the

microwave so the butter melts and all of the syrups soften and it makes it really easy

to mix up.

Now I'm going to split mine into two because the bowl is so full - if you're not doubling

yours you can skip that step.

And then add in the milk and mix that through.

Then swap to a dough hook and add in about half of your flour.

And that's going to still get very full because we are making a big gingerbread house.

So what I want you to do is put the rest of the flour on your counter and tip the gingerbread

mixture onto the top.

Then use your hands to mix all the rest of the flour into the dough.

And now yes this is going to be very sticky and soft but you don't add more flour, just

mix what you have in and then wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for a few hours.

Now it will be firmer and you can roll it out using a little flour on your rolling pin

and some baking paper underneath.

And then put your template pieces over the top and use a pizza cutter to cut along the

straight edges.

Use a knife to cut out the windows and fiddly bits but leave them in place.

Take off some of the excess gingerbread but leave a border of spare gingerbread all the

way around all of your pieces.

This just stops the corners especially the pointy ones and the edges of the house from

getting over-cooked in the oven.

Then peel off the template before you put it in the oven, I sometimes forget that.

Then for the little front part roll your gingerbread quite thinly so it is easier to put together

and then follow the same steps as we did for the other pieces.

And you can get the template for this house and lots of other gingerbread houses on the

HowToCookThat website and again I'll link to that below.

After baking for 15 minutes take your tray out of the oven and recut the lines and remove

any windows.

Then put it back in the oven for another 10-15 minutes to dry out.

Exactly how long it will take will depend on how thick you've rolled your gingerbread.

With the rest of my dough I'm going to cut out stars to make a Christmas Tree, you can

get creative and make fences, a little shed, a dog kennel or garden beds, anything your

heart desires.

For the icing we are going to need icing sugar, pavaolva magic mix or powdered egg white and

water.

Just mix all those together until you get a smooth paste.

Split it into bowls and add the colours of your choice.

I am making some grey first for outlines.

To do different patterns in sections on my house I'm just going to use a ruler and mark

off straight lines across.

I'm not trying to cut through the gingerbread, I'm just trying to leave a line so I've got

a guide.

Then take your grey icing and pipe along the line and remember to go around the edge on

both the front and back panels of the house because you will be able to see those edges.

We also want to draw a line around the edge of each piece so it gives a border so when

we will it with colour it doesn't just run off the sides.

Now draw a double outline around each of your windows and an extra bit at the bottom so

it looks like a window sill.

What you do from there is really up to you, it's your house.

I am going to put patterns in this middle section and swirls and shapes just to fill

that all in.

And then for the bottom to contrast that free-form bit in the middle, I'm going to do straight

lines, cut that into little squares and then cut those into triangles.

And then you can colour that in.

Now to colour in the pattern what we need to do is add a teaspoon of water to some of

your icing and mix it through.

This is just going to thin it down.

Now you want to thin it until it flows like this, like thick honey.

If it's too thin it will just soak into the gingerbread, if it's too thick it's going

to be too hard to work with.

For small areas you should be able to dip a skewer into your red icing , put some on

and spread it into the corners.

Do the same with the next colour.

And this is really just like colouring in but using icing.

I am going to do the swirls in the same colour so that it ties the two parts of the house

together.

Once you've coloured in all your swirls then add a bit of green to that colour for in between

those swirls and fill that in all the gaps.

For bigger spaces you can use a pipette or a syringe or even a teaspoon to add icing

into place and then just spread it out with your skewer.

To decorate a house neatly like this takes a bit of time, we are going to use this particular

one at a picnic with friends tomorrow.

The other house that I made the pieces for, that one is going to look completely different

- that is our family gingerbread house - we have a tradition every year of making a gingerbread

house together and everyone gets to decorate one side however they like - so it looks a

bit crazy, it looks fun, a little bit messy.

And we eat it for dessert on Christmas Day.

Let me know in the comments if you guys have any Christmas traditions that you like to

do every year?

I think this house is looking busy enough so I'm going to make the top section just

plain blue, you can spoon that in and again just use the skewer to spread it into the

corners all the way to the edges.

For the window frames add in some brown icing, and now when you make this colour only thin

down about 1/4 of it.

Leave 3/4 of it thick in another bowl - we'll use once this first layer is dry.

For the little front pieces I am outlining them in grey too, all the way around the edge

and around the windows.

Then filling them with plain cream colour.

Once your brown is dry pipe over the thick brown icing over the top in whatever pattern

you like.

Now you can make really precise window frames using fondant.

I'll link you to my other gingerbread house videos at the end so you can get some other

ideas of how to do them.

Last Christmas Pastry Chef Mike made a giant version of one of my gingerbread houses for

a meet and greet we had at a department store.

It was pretty amazing seeing one of my gingerbread houses blown up big and even more fun meeting

you guys, I love meeting subscribers face to face.

To assemble the walls of the house I am going to use compound chocolate because it sets

quicker than royal icing so it's a bit faster to put it together.

Pipe along the base of two walls and up one side of the back.

Then position those two bits into place.

Add more chocolate on the other side and add your next wall to that edge.

Now pipe along the outside edge of the side walls and across the base and put the front

of the house into place.

For the windows I am using gelatin sheets, these are technically edible, but they don't

taste great so I'd suggest not actually eating them.

I've got other alternatives for windows in the other gingerbread house videos as well.

Take the centre support piece and put chocolate along one side.

Down on the bottom inside the house and up the other side.

And put that into place - and this piece will help hold the roof on when we put that on

in a minute, you'll see how that works.

Now for that little front section, use more chocolate to glue that into place.

Once all that chocolate is completely set if you want to add a light just loosen the

house from the base and add the light into place threading it under and in.

Now make sure you are using a globe that doesn't get hot or you might burn your whole house

down not just your gingerbread house.

Use chocolate to secure the house back into place onto thee board.

And then before the roof goes on, add lots of candy to the inside of the house - I had

a little helper who was very excited to help me do this.

Then add chocolate along the joins of the roof and add your roof pieces into place,

you are going to need to hold them there for a moment until you can feel that the chcoolate

is starting to set and they're going to be able to hold there.

And then you can pipe more chocolate along the joins and it's important to make sure

that there's no light that comes out anywhere from the house except for the windows - you

don't want it coming through cracks in the roof.

Add the little roof bits into place at the front too.

And that roof is looking a bit plain so let's add some Freckles - that's what we call these

chocolates here in Australia, let me know if you have a different name for it in other

countries.

Add them in rows like roof tiles all over the roof.

Then add jelly beans along the top edge.

Add some chocolate to the roof of the entry.

And if you scrape down using a serrated knife as it sets you'll get a nice pattern on this

little roof.

For your tree you just need to stack up your stars, I like to use two of each size so the

tree ends up a bit taller.

Then add jelly beans to the sides to make it colourful and pretty.

Cover the base with melted white chocolate.

And if you don't want the ground to be flat you can always just add some marshmallows

or candy and drizzle them with chocolate so you have a little bit of uneven ground there.

Add your tree into place on one side and use a tree strainer to shake some icing sugar

to make it snowy.

If you make a gingerbread house this year you can post a photo of it in the comments

section on the website so I can see it.

Subscribe to HowToCookThat for more crazy sweet creations, click here for the recipe,

here for more gingerbread houses and Christmas ideas and here for the latest video.

Make it a great week and I'll see you Friday.