Christmas

Basic Gingerbread House Walls

by:
December  2, 2014
4.5
6 Ratings
Basic Gingerbread House Walls
  • Makes 1 large house
Author Notes

This recipe makes enough dough to build one fairly large house (7 x 9 x 10-inch or a similar size). This dough is edible, but you don't really want to eat it: It's made with no leaveners so that it holds its shape in the baking process, and the ground cinnamon and ginger are in there really only to make your kitchen smell of gingerbread while it bakes. You don't even have to use it. Although if you don't use ginger, then your gingerbread house will just be a...bread house. —molly yeh

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • 1 cup dark corn syrup, molasses, or a mix of the two (corn syrup for lighter colored walls, molasses for dark walls)
  • 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup margarine or butter
  • 4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
Directions
  1. In a medium saucepan or microwave-safe bowl, combine corn syrup or molasses, brown sugar, and margarine or butter. Heat over medium heat on the stove or in the microwave for 1-minute increments, stirring in between each, until the margarine or butter is melted and the sugar has completely dissolved.
  2. In a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients. Stir in the sugar mixture until combined. Cover with plastic wrap and let cool at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes.
  3. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350° F and get your stencils ready. You can either make them or find them online: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-create-gingerbread-houses/step3/Day-Three-Pt-1-House-Templates/
  4. Roll your dough out onto a piece of parchment paper that will fit on your cookie sheet. Lightly flour the dough and place your stencils on top (leaving 1 inch in between them) and use a pizza cutter or sharp knife to trace around them. Remove excess dough, slide the parchment onto your cookie sheet, and then bake until the edges just start to brown. Begin checking for doneness at 15 minutes. If you'd like a darker brown color, you can leave them in there for up to 45 minutes. You can re-roll your dough scraps a few times. If it starts to feel dry, microwave it for 30 seconds or so.
  5. Let your walls cool and then assemble! See my Small Batch article for specific instructions.
Tags:

See what other Food52ers are saying.

  • June Wert
    June Wert
  • roryrabbitfield
    roryrabbitfield
  • Hiromi Motojima
    Hiromi Motojima
  • Jamie
    Jamie
molly yeh
molly yeh recently moved from brooklyn to a farm outside of grand forks, north dakota, where her husband is a fifth generation farmer. she writes the blog my name is yeh.

Popular on Food52

6 Reviews

Jamie
Jamie December 20, 2018
Wonderful recipe. It was quick to make and the suggestion to microwave it when it dried out a bit worked! Yay! We have two gingerbread houses -one large and one small chalet- ready to decorate. I did substitute dark corn syrup and shortening, instead of butter. This saved on the expense of molasses and butter in the recipe.
 
June W.
June W. December 18, 2015
sometimes you can microwave it and remoisten it if it gets crumbly.
 
julie
julie December 23, 2014
I thought that the dough was a bit difficult to work with. As mentioned in the other comment, rolling it on parchment was challenging as the parchment moves quite a bit. i tried rolling it on counter, but it stuck. I am at high altitude so that could be a factor with how stiff the dough became so quickly.
 
roryrabbitfield
roryrabbitfield December 21, 2014
Can I make the dough ahead of time(1-2 days), store chilled, let come to room temp, and then roll out on baking day?
 
Hiromi M.
Hiromi M. December 20, 2014
Love this! So easy to work with and tastes good. This can get really crunchy, which I like, but it may be too hard for some. It's perfect for gingerbread house for sure. Can't wait to put it together!
 
Hiromi M.
Hiromi M. December 21, 2014
It was impossible to roll the dough on the paper alone. The paper moves around with it. My husband had to hold the paper. So, I rolled it on the kitchen counter without a paper, move the flat dough on to the paper and used cookie cutter. It didn't really stick to anything, so it was easy. Again, I love the super crunchy texture. It reminds me of Japanese cinnamon cookie (Yatsuhashi).