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Gemma's Bigger Bolder Baking Log Cabin Gingerbread House
Hi Bold Bakers! Christmas is almost here and to celebrate I'm teaming up with some of my
great YouTube friends to bring you holiday dessert ideas. You will see great holiday
desserts from Hot Chocolate Hits, Kawaii Sweet World, The Squishy Monster, and Handle the Heat.
My contribution to this collaboration is a BIG & BOLD Log Cabin Gingerbread House.
So let's get baking!
I have read all of your requests for a gingerbread house, and to be honest with you this week
was the first time I've ever made one so I really hope you like what I came up with.
We're going to start out by making our gingerbread dough. If you don't have an electric mixer,
you can actually do it by hand just make sure that your butter is room temperature.
To your mixer, you're going to add in your butter and brown sugar and cream together
well. Now let's combine our dry ingredients with our flour. Our ginger, cinnamon, cloves,
baking soda and salt. And then mix them all well together.
When your butter and sugar is creamed, we're going to add in the egg. Then turn your machine
back on and beat the egg until well combined. Next add in your molasses. Now add in all
of your dry ingredients and mix to form a dough.
Gingerbread is a perfect holiday cookie so even if you don't get to make a house you
should definitely try and make gingerbread men.
Ok. This looks great. This is what your gingerbread dough should look like. It's nice and stiff,
and you can also give it a little taste. Mmmm. Yummy.
Now we're going to wrap our dough in cling film and let it rest in the fridge for around
an hour so it's going to be much easier to work with.
Roll your dough on a well-floured surface and make sure you move it around so it doesn't
stick. I'm rolling my dough to around a quarter of an inch thick.
So I made my own template for cutting out the gingerbread house. And I'm going to put
these measurements along with the recipe in the description box below the video.
To cut out your house, I like to use a pizza cutter but you can use a knife and just go
around the edges of your template.
For the ends of the house, you're going to need to cut out two of these. I like to roll
out a little bit of dough at a time so it stays cold and it's easier to work with.
Now cut out both of your roof pieces. And then gently lift your house over to your baking tray.
These bigger squares are the front of the house so we need two of these as well but
we're going to have to cut the windows and the door out of one of them.
I'm going to put the measurements in the description box below about where I cut them. Make sure
you save this guy because we need to bake him.
And then along the same level, cut out your windows. And I'm going to show you a really
fun trick to do something with the windows.
I'm also going to make a little chimney for my house. These measurements are much smaller
but it makes such a nice addition to your overall house. You'll need four pieces for
your chimney.
Because this is Bigger Bolder Baking, we're going to give our gingerbread house stained
glass windows. We're going to put candies in the holes where the windows are and when
it bakes it will melt and create a stained glass window. It's going to look beautiful.
Bake your gingerbread at 350 degrees F for around 10 minutes or until crisp around the outsides.
While our gingerbread is baking, we're going to get our royal icing ready. You can buy
it in the store in dry form or you can actually make your own. I'm going to put the recipe
that I used in the description box below. The royal icing is going to be the glue that
holds our house together. And all it is is like a thick frosting that will dry really hard.
Our timer has gone off so let's check on our gingerbread. Our gingerbread is out of the
oven and it looks and smells great. We're going to set this aside to go cold and then
we can start with our assembly.
If you like holiday recipes like I do then give this video a thumbs up and for more great
recipes don't forget to subscribe to my channel. Now this is my most favorite part: bringing
the gingerbread house to life.
Begin with the front and one of the sides. Pipe your royal icing thick along the sides.
And then we're just going to start to piece it together. Now to make sure that it stays
there we're going to put a tin in here to hold it up.
Ok. Now we're going to add on the other side. And we're going to do just like we did before.
Pipe frosting along the side. And then just stick them together. And then again, another
tin. Now a good idea is to stand over the house and just look down on it and make sure that
everything is as straight as it can be.
Now we're going to put on the back of the house so we're going to put icing on both
of the sides. Then line it up with the rest of the house so it's as straight as possible.
You can reinforce your frosting by just doing it on the inside as well just to make sure
that everything is going to stick well together.
For the roof, similar to the wall you're going to put frosting on both of the sides and then
along one of the sides. Then carefully place it on. And just reinforce the roof by going
inside as well. And you can even go on the outside too because we're going to cover all
of this up. You want to make sure that everything stays exactly where it's supposed to.
The house is almost assembled but I'm going to leave the last panel of the roof off because
I want to leave the tins in there, let the house dry really hard, and then we'll put
this on. So next we're going to assemble our chimney.
For the chimney it's the same deal, we're going to stick the sides together. So then
this one goes here. I know this looks kind of like a funny shape for a chimney but when
we put it on the roof you're going to see the method to my madness. And for the last
little small piece, we're going to put frosting on the sides. And then place it at the top.
You can prop it against something while it sets.
Ok, so let's be honest. This gingerbread house does not look very good. There are some holes.
It's all kind of wobbly. But that's why we're making a log cabin gingerbread house. We are
going cover all of those imperfection with pretzels.
So I'm using long, thick pretzels to resemble logs for my log cabin. So all you want to
do is measure them to the size of your house. If they're a little too big, get a serrated
knife and cut some off, and then stick it to the house with royal icing. Putting on
your logs does not have to be perfect. Sometimes a little bit of imperfection actually makes
it look a little bit more real. As you go around the house, you can cut the pretzels
to fit the size so on the sides of the house just keep on making them smaller and smaller
until you get that point. It's going to look gorgeous! I hope by now you guys can see where
I'm going with this. It's really starting to look like a log cabin.
Ok, so now that we've done the side of the house we're going to move over to the front.
Just like the sides, cut your pretzels to fit the frame. Make sure you save room to
add your door. Don't worry about this little spot here because we're going to fill that
in later. The key to making your gingerbread house is be patient and it will come together.
You can use your door to prop up this bit and make sure it fits later. So as you can
see our house is getting there but it's still a work in progress.
So we're going to let this set a little bit and make some decorations to put on the house.
Using a star nozzle, pipe some royal icing into the shape of a wreath. You can easily
dye your icing green. And then if you have some little red decorations we're going to
make it look like holly. Next pipe some squiggly lines for your garland. You will need around
three or four of them to string together. Just like the wreath, we're going to pop on
a little color. These decorations need around 24 hours to dry so you can actually make them
the night before. And then the next day, this is what they're going to look like: nice and
dry and they're going to look great on the front of your house.
To give the front of the house some more color, I'm going to paint the front door red. Just
with some red frosting that I made.
Now that the house is a little more stable, we're going to put on the back of the roof.
Pipe your icing on all sides and then simply place it on your house. And then to make sure
it sticks, just fill in these holes.
Now this is the part that I really like, when it does start to look like a cabin, we are
going to put snow on the roof and around the windows. It's going to look beautiful.
Simply start to pipe your royal frosting all over the roof. The messier the better because
it makes really nice texture. Just do it anyway you want. Because snow isn't uniform, and
it falls everywhere, I like to color it in around the house to make it look like fresh
snow. These little parts that we didn't put pretzels on, we are going to put snow on to
make it look like the windowsill.
Just to make it look a little bit more whimsical, I like to add some white sugar to the top.
So our chimney is set, so we're going to put it on the house. To stick your chimney onto
the house, put some more icing around the edges. And then simply stick it flush onto
the roof. And that's why it's that funny shape because it just fits right there. To make
it blend in a little bit more, we're going to put snow on the top.
To stick on your garland, you can put it straight into the icing. You can put some extra snow
around them.
Now place on your festive door.
And there you have it, a beautiful log cabin gingerbread house made from scratch and it
wasn't nearly as much as work as you would think it is.
If you enjoyed this video, please like and share it. And make sure you check out all
the other fantastic videos in this playlist. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel and
I'll see you back here again next Thursday for more Bigger Bolder Baking.