Lebkuchen gingerbread House collage image

Lebkuchen Gingerbread House

Cooking a lebkuchen gingerbread house from scratch, without buying a plastic wrapped kit is easier than you think. Use my tasty Lebkuchen recipe as the base and glue it together with home-made icing glue then decorate as you wish.

Read about my lovely day cooking with Ava below the recipe.

Gingerbread House from scratch

Gingerbread House from scratch

Recipe by Marti Cuatt

Making your own gingerbread house from scratch is fun, especially if you do it with friends or family. It’s a great project to get creative with kids.

Course: Blog, recipeDifficulty: Intermediate
0 from 0 votes
Makes

1

house
Prep time

45

minutes
Cooking time

10

minutes
Rest for

30

minutes
Clever Cooking

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You will need

  • For the house
  • 1 quantity 1 lebkuchen dough

  • for the glue
  • 2 2 egg whites

  • 3 cups 3 soft icing mixture (powdered sugar) – more if needed to stiffen

  • 1/2 tsp 1/2 cream of tartar (or lemon juice)

  • to decorate
  • 1 packet 1 coloured writing icing

  • 1 1 assortment sweets and sprinkles of your choice

Here’s what to do

  • Make the lebkuchen dough according to instructions and let rest.
  • Once dough has rested, preheat the oven to 180C
  • Roll out and using a template (see note below), cut the house shapes directly onto baking parchment.
  • Bake approximately 10 minutes, remove from the oven and let cool on trays.
  • For the glue
  • Make this home-made edible royal icing glue to stick it all together.
  • Beat egg whites until soft peaks form, then beat in the sifted icing sugar and cream of tartar, about 1/3 cup at a time until the mixture is stiff enough to pipe.
  • Add a little food colouring if you like, but white makes good snow.
  • Use to glue the house together and add additional decorations.

Tips and tricks

  • Note – royal icing contains raw egg whites. Make sure you know the source of your eggs and use the freshest available.
  • I used a simple template from bestgingerbreadhouses.com – there’s plenty to choose from here. I enlarged it slightly to fit onto an A4 sheet of paper.
  • READ ON for more about making this delightful project with my granddaughter, Ava.

Cooking with Ava

My lovely granddaughter Ava asked me some time ago if we could make a gingerbread house, so we booked it in for the first day of school holidays, just a week out from Christmas 2021. And that’s how we came to make the Lebkuchen Gingerbread House.

I recently made a batch of Christmas lebkuchen – a German ginger spiced biscuit – so figured it was the perfect dough for this house. And I wasn’t wrong.

Now you may not know this, but Ava and I have cooked together since she was tiny, probably around two years old. Way back then, her ‘helping’ was more like dipping her finger into the batter or icing. And she definitely helped with the washing up … cleaning, in a manner of speaking, the spoons and bowls before they even made it to the dishwasher!

She’s 12 now and becoming quite an accomplished cook. She bakes most of the school lunchbox treats and she cooks dinner once in a while too. Of course my daughter cooks the rest of the time, but it’s great Ava takes such an interest.

I’m planning on cooking and sharing more food experiences and adventures that Ava and I have.

Bon Appetit.

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