Cake nineteen - Father Xmas's House - Making the structure

Get inspired

Step 3: Making the structure

Honey-based dough, Gingerbread dough, 20 almonds

House

Line an oven tray with paper. Roll out the honey-based dough into long strings which should be about 40 cm long and 1 1/2 cm wide. Place the strings into an oven tray leaving some space in between so that the strings will look like wooden logs in a chalet.

Bake  at 200° for about 20/30 minutes. 

Line two oven trays with paper. Leave some dough aside for the bricks, the doors and the windows. Roll out the rest of the dough into two 1 cm thick rectangles, a smaller one of about 25 x 15 cm which will be used for the roof and a bigger one, the  size of an oven tray, which will be the base of our house. 

Place them onto the oven trays and bake at 200° for about 12/18 minutes.
Use templates to cut out the house walls. Cut an extra front wall which you will use as an inside wall to strengthen the house structure.

Bricks, doors, window shutters, chimey and fence

Roll out some dough to 1/2 cm thick. Firstlly make 20 bricks for the two facades: cut dough into 2 x 1 cm rectangles and put an almond in the middle. Secondly make two doors and six window shutters (see templates for size), then the chimney and fencing. Place them onto an oven tray and bake at 200° for about 12/15 minutes.

Park 

Roll out the gingerbread dough and cut some trees of different sizes and a reindeer. Place them onto an oven tray and bake at 200° for about 12/15 minutes.

also visit:
http://time-for-a-cake.blogspot.it/2013/01/cake-nineteen.html

Cake nineteen - Father Xmas's House

Get Inspired

There are a few things you should consider before making a biscuit house, time, patience and possibly help. You must also change your point of view: you’re not making a cake, you’re building a house! Yes! You’ll be more like an architect in the first phase and then you need the expertize of a bricklayer to make it stand. If you, for example, don’t use the appropriate materials to stick all the parts together your house will  collapse. 

It’s going to be a real project. You’ll have to design the house starting from its size including all details: windows, doors, roof, a chimney, the garden around, with trees and paths; you’ll have to prepare the stencils of each part of your house; you’’ll have to choose the materials, i.e, what kind of biscuit dough to use for the sinlge parts; you’ll have to make and bake the doughs; to cut all the parts, to build your house and surrounding park and finally to decorate it.

It’ll take quite a long time to see it ready but all your efforts will be rewarded! Consider at least four days from project making to decoration.

Step 1: Design 

A very importatnt step| Decide what your house will look like. Prepare the cardboard templates of the house: walls, roof, and door, choose the cookie cutters for the trees and reindeers and decide the choco decorations for doors and windows.

Here are my templates.

Step2: Dough

I usually make two different doughs, one for the house and one for the decorations. when I want my house to look like a wooden mountain chalet. The dough I use for the house is made with a lot of honey which gives the structure the look and strength of real wood while the gingerbread dough is good for the trees and the decorations.

Honey-based dough (for the house)

1 kilo honey

1/4 l water

1,250 g flour

200 g candied orange and citrus 

40 g cinnamon, ginger, muskat nutmeg

30 g baking soda

Combine the honey and water in a saucepan and heat to boiling, stirring continuously. Let cool. Put the flour and the candied fruit on a pastry board, make a hole in the middle, pour the honey mixture and knead well. Add the baking soda and knead until smooth. Cover and let rest at room temparature for one or two days. 

Gingerbread dough (for the decorations)

100 g butter

250 g honey 

250 g sugar

1 tsp ginger

1tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp cocoa powder

500 g flour 

1/2 packet baking powder

one pinch of salt

2 eggs

Combine the butter, honey, sugar, spices and cocoa in a saucepan, and heat to boiling, stirring continuously.. Let cool. Add the flour mixed with the baking powder,, the salt and the eggs. Stir with a wooden spoon at first then pour the mixture onto a floured surface and knead well. Wrap in aluminium foil and let rest overnight. 

also visit: 
http://time-for-a-cake.blogspot.it/2013/01/cake-nineteen.html