I decided to make mine an A-frame house to make it easier. It's a good thing that I did this since I messed up the royal icing with my fatal mistake - I did not follow the recipe!!! When I realised that the recipe called for 880gr of icing sugar, I was instantly skeptical (my skepticism was completely unfounded). Then when I had added about 500gr of icing sugar and the lactic acid was building up in my arms and shoulders, I decided that the icing was thick enough....well it wasn't as you can see from the photo the icing looks like snow melted in the summer heat. Quite fitting since I made it on a 30 deg Celsius day. My lesson that I should well and truly have learned by now is. Always follow the recipe, especially when baking and using a reliable recipe source. I like to tweak my recipes all the time, but when baking it is very wise to follow the recipe first time around then look to make changes in small increments. Lesson learned. I was quite embarrassed by my dismal looking house.
The gingerbread baking went well and without a hitch. My 15 year old nephew was a great help and enjoyed the bake off with his Aunty. He also told me that the final result looked homemade with love, a polite was of saying that it was pretty average looking.
Another tip I have after making this recipe is to roll out the gingerbread mixture on baking paper, then bake it on the same paper. Mine was getting stuck to the bench when I was just rolling it out onto the lightly floured surface. I often use this trick to make life easy.
I hope you enjoy making your gingerbread house as much as I did. I plan on making one next week for Christmas Day so that I can get it right and make it a little more beautiful.
Follow the link to the recipe. By the way, I found this gingerbread to have a perfect amount of ginger, definitely not too pungent. http://www.gourmettraveller.com.au/gingerbread.htm
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