Gingerbread Beach Huts
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I’ve built quite a few gingerbread houses over the years – my very first one was a gift sent by my cousins. It came in a beautiful big box with all the pieces already baked, little plastic containers filled with icing and all sorts of sweets and sprinkles for decorating. My brother, sisters and I spent an entire day engrossed in building the (what felt like) gigantic edible house. Now that I think about it, it was probably more of a gift to my mother, who must’ve relished an entire day without 4 holiday-bored kids annoying her! By reliving and building this childhood memory over the years, I’ve learnt two tricks to making a gingerbread house:
- Always cut your gingerbread pieces out AFTER baking. The raw pastry cutouts simply stretch or spread in the oven leaving you with a wonky house. Not ideal.
- Stick the house together using caramel – not royal icing. Caramel hardens quickly giving the perfect structure. You can then pipe on royal icing afterwards if you’re going to keep the house for a few days.
Gingerbread Beach Huts
Makes 1
125g butter, softened
90g Natura Sugars Molasses Sugar
230g golden syrup
375g cake flour, plus extra for dusting
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Royal icing
1 egg white, beaten
2 cups Natura Sugars Demerara Icing Sugar, sifted
squeeze of lemon juice
Food colouring
Caramel
1 cup Natura Sugars Light Brown Sugar
To assemble
Wooden chopping or cake board, to display
Natura Sugars Soft Brown Sugar, for beach sand
Cocktail umbrellas
Ocean sweeties, to decorate
Gingerbread house template here
Preheat the oven to 180C. Cream the butter and sugar well until very pale and fluffy. Add the syrup, flour, spices and bicarb and mix until a smooth dough forms. Roll the dough out on a floured surface or between two sheets of baking paper until 5mm thick. Refrigerate for 30 minutes if too soft. Bake in the preheated oven for 8-10 minutes or until golden and crisp. While still hot, cut out templates using a sharp knife. * If you want, cut out doors, a beach towel and a surfboard from the off cuts. Set aside to cool.
To make the royal icing, whisk the egg white gently then add the icing sugar until a stiff paste forms. Add the lemon juice. Divide the icing into 4 bowls, colour the batches in red, blue, green and yellow. Ice the biscuits with the royal icing, using sweets to decorate if desired. Allow to set completely.
To assemble, prepare the caramel by placing the sugar in a saucepan with 2 tbsp water and heat until dissolved. Bring to the boil and simmer until golden brown. Remove from the heat. Use the caramel to glue the beach hut together onto the cake board. Then glue on the roof and decorate as desired. Sprinkle the soft brown sugar around the base for ‘beach sand’ and arrange the beach-themed sweeties around.
