Gingerbread Recipe for Eating & Building!

Gingerbread Recipe for Gingerbread House Building

This recipe is based on a few basic recipes I have used throughout the years, but combined and altered to get that perfect ingredient combination for structurally sound cookie-building architecture. I also added my favorite icing glue recipe at the bottom of this post, so be sure to read through for all the details. This project has been a labor of love throughout the years and has even turned into a Spooky Choco House tradition during Halloween. I can’t wait to start designing and baking this year’s complicated gingerbread house. Tag me on socials with your creations if you make one too!

First, a few of my best tips!

• Use graphing paper when you are drawing out your design to get straight edges. Cut out your pieces and use those as cookie cutting templates.
• Use parchment paper for larger cutouts. It makes it so much easier to transfer them straight to a cookie sheet without warping your design.
• If you need even more flavor, just add more spices, especially ginger! If you want a darker look to your dough, you can add cocoa powder!
• Do a test batch of a few cutouts so you can find out just how thick you want to roll your dough and how many minutes you want to bake them for the perfect cookie hardness.
• Humidity is not your friend when it comes to gingerbread! If you are keeping these long-term like a house, overbake and store them in a dry location.

Gingerbread House Dough Recipe

Ingredients:

• 6 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tbsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups dark corn syrup
• 1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar, tightly packed
• 1 cup margarine

Instructions:

1. Stir together flour, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and salt in a large bowl and set aside.
2. In a medium pot, heat the margarine, corn syrup, and brown sugar over medium-low heat, stirring constantly until the margarine is melted.
3. Pour the hot mixture into your bowl with the dry ingredients and mix with a spatula until a dough forms and all ingredients are well combined.
4. Transfer dough to plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes.
5. Preheat the oven to 350F and prepare your work surface and rolling pin with flour.
6. Pinch off 1/4 of the dough at a time and keep the rest wrapped in plastic so it doesn’t dry out. Lightly flour the piece of dough you are working with and roll it out to 1/8″ thick for harder and more precisely shaped cookies or 1/4″ for softer, chewier, and slightly puffed shapes.
7. Bake your cookie cutouts at 350F for 7-20 minutes. I know that’s a wildly wide cooking time range. For tiny detail pieces that are thin, bake for the lower 7 minutes. For cookies, 10 minutes. For large, thicker shapes like walls or roof pieces, 20 minutes will bake a sturdy design. If it’s your first time, you can take the cookies out, let them cool, test the hardness, and even rebake for longer to harden further. You can check for doughy centers by watching for a consistent color over the entire cookie. If they’re underbaked, the middles will have a darker color. If they burn, they will turn dark brown and then black.
8. Let cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before transferring your cutouts to a cooling rack. When they are completely cool, you can start decorating them.

Here are some of my latest gingerbread creations for inspiration! You can also find my recipe for my favorite icing glue below…

Icing Glue Ingredients:

• 1 1/5 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tbsp meringue powder
• 3 tbsp warm water

Directions:

1. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, add the ingredients and whisk on high for 8-10 minutes or until soft peaks form.
2. Add to a piping bag with a very small piping tip, and you’re ready to go! You can leave it out on the countertop for multiple days of use.

If you use this recipe, show me your creations on Instagram by tagging me in your posts! @harmonylynngoodson <3

Happy Baking!