I am going to teach you all things gingerbread today. This means a lot of tips to make your gingerbread dough a success, and of course lots of tips on royal icing and how to successfully glue the gingerbread pieces together as well as decorate them. By the way, gingerbread that is only used for decoration can be stored for several years, check number 6 below for my success tips. Finally, there are various recipes with gingerbread, I hope there is something for you. Let’s get started right away and see how to go about this!
#1 The Gingerbread Dough
- There are many different recipes, many with potash and similar hard-to-find ingredients, but I have to say that I have had the best results with a gingerbread dough that is even very easy to veganize, as it does not require eggs and is made with molasses. For example, I used it for my traditional gingerbread house or Advent wreath made with gingerbread houses.
- For a gingerbread house or similar large decorations, the dough should be rather hard, so we will only need little baking soda so that the dough does not rise too much or even bubble.
- The dough should be chilled for at least an hour, preferably overnight. This allows the gluten to develop better and the molasses to harden again, making it easier to roll out.
- The advantage of my eggless dough is the fact that you can chill it for up to a week in the fridge as long as you keep it airtight. So no stress in making the dough a few days in advance.
- Do not roll out too thinly. After all, you don’t want the gingerbread house to collapse after a few weeks. This actually happened to me once, as gingerbread softens after a few weeks. We want a stable construction with sturdy walls. Of course, the thickness of the dough is not as important for simple gingerbread cookies.
#2 Baking
- If worst comes to worst, you can re-roll out the dough and cut it out again before baking the pieces. All pieces should be as straight as possible.
- If you bake the dough for about a minute longer than usual, it will be perfect; it’s better if it’s too hard than too soft and the dough can be a dark brown.
- Fresh out of the oven, check directly to see if you need to straighten anything. This works much better when the pieces are still warm.
- But even if you don’t notice it on time, you can also trim and correct cold gingerbread pieces, then cut from above with a strong jerking motion if possible.
#3 Decorating with Royal Icing
- I have become an advocate of decorating before assembling gingerbread. Only if you can decorate from the top with a piping nozzle will it be pretty.
- Be sure to leave a small border for the royal icing/glue so that your art isn’t covered and disappears under the glue.
- Only if you want to decorate with sweets/candy, for example, and don’t want to draw fine lines with a piping nozzle, is it a good idea to decorate the gingerbread house after it has been assembled. You can also decorate the mini gingerbread houses at the end, as they are so small that it makes no difference.
- Royal icing can also be kept refrigerated for about a week. To do this, seal airtight and spray with a little water when using it again.
- In my opinion, spraying water onto icing is the best way to achieve the right consistency for decorating. To be able to make names and delicate decorations, the consistency is more fluid than when gluing and assembling parts, for example.
- Gingerbread also makes very good name tags. Bake the appropriate shapes and write the names on the tags with icing, e.g. for the Christmas table. The “Ugly Sweater” trend can also be made with gingerbread.
#4 Assembling
- There are people who like to assemble their gingerbread pieces with either chocolate or even caramel, but this is too slow for me in the first case and too quick in the second, I prefer to use royal icing. This hardens quickly enough and conceals flaws wonderfully, as it is white and therefore looks like snow. If something looks crooked, you can cover it with the icing.
- For larger pieces, you should wait before gluing anything else on, otherwise the whole construction will quickly collapse. With the garland in the picture (you can also watch it in this short video), on the other hand, I was able to continue relatively quickly as the individual gingerbread cookies were not glued together.
- In this video you can see quite well how I decorate and assemble a very large gingerbread house. As you can see, it’s not that difficult, you just have to be patient and sometimes wait until everything is glued together.
- For tree decorations, on the other hand, the shapes shouldn’t be too heavy. I recommend cutting out the holes before baking for smaller cookies and only after baking for larger ones. The twine should also be as thick as possible, as you don’t want the cookies to fall right off the tree during Christmas.
#5 Final Decoration
- As soon as you have glued all the parts together well, you can use the icing to touch up any minor mistakes or to cover up any holes.
- There are no limits to your imagination as to what else you want to add. Possible ideas are: Lego people, gummy bears or other figures, pine cones to bed it on, a wooden disk to place it on, tea lights, etc.
- Instead of royal icing, you can of course use various sweets, nuts and other ingredients to give the house its character. But as you can see from the bird house above, you can also do a lot with just white decorations. Moreover, the decorations on the Christmas tree don’t have to be particularly complicated either.
- Hard gingerbread can be softened overnight by placing an apple slice or bread in the cookie tin.
#6 Keeping Gingerbread for the Next Season
- Yes, you can store tree decorations, for example, for the following years! I do it as follows:
- I pack smaller tree decorations in airtight jars and put larger houses loose in a box with a lid. As long as everything stays dry, you don’t have to worry too much.
- Every year I only replace ugly decorations (e.g. if the icing has come off) so that it smells nice during Christmas. The gingerbread pieces almost always last for several years and I am able to decorate my home with each piece for a few years. So I don’t need to do as much anymore.
#7 Recipes with Gingerbread
Mini gingerbread houses for the mug
Gingerbread for the Christmas tree
Vegan mini gingerbread houses for a mug
Vegan gingerbread hearts with jam filling
Cake with gingerbread domino stones
You can use the mini gingerbread houses as cake decoration as pictured below. I explain in this blog article how to decorate a cake to become festive.
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