Can you believe it’s been six years since I made my first gingerbread house? I didn’t know it then, but when I shared my gingerbread greenhouse on Christmas Eve in 2019, it started my journey with gingerbread house making. Since then, I’ve tried to make at least one gingerbread house or display a year and it has become one of my favourite holiday traditions. Cherry Bombe even let me yap about it on their podcast and The Kitchn said it was the prettiest gingerbread house of the year (I’m honoured!).
Gingerbread Greenhouse 2019
Gingerbread Greenhouse 2020
Gingerbread Storefront 2021
Gingerbread A-Frame 2021
Gingerbread Skating Rink 2022
To me, what makes these houses so special are thin gingerbread panels paired with the see-through windows. I always receive a lot of questions about the windows and I achieve the patterned glass look. The hardest part of making the gingerbread panels is making sure you don’t break the delicate pieces and the windows are the easiest: it’s gelatin sheets (which comes patterned). Gelatin sheets can be purchased online or speciality kitchen stores.
Instead of making a new gingerbread house design this year, I wanted to revisit my first gingerbread greenhouse. When I made this house in 2019, I was more focused on the measurements of the house and making sure it wouldn’t fall over. This year, I want to focus on the details and the decorations of the house. My favourite part about constructing a gingerbread house is the decoration of the panels, so this project seems like a natural one to take on.
Instead of gelatin sheets, which I’ve used every year for gingerbread houses, I used isomalt for the windows. Isomalt is sugar substitute that is used in a lot of sculpted sugar work. I’ve used isomalt a lot in the past for my shaker cookies, but never for a larger cookie piece like this. Isomalt is also a good substitute for gelatin sheets because it reinforces the gingerbread panels, making them less prone to breaking during the building process. Isomalt, may seems scary to work with at first because you are dealing with very hot sugar, but the process is relatively simple. Isomalt gets melted in a pot over the stove (a very passive process) and is then left to settle in a low temperature oven for a couple minutes before being poured into the gingerbread cavities. Allow the isomalt to fully cool and harden before moving the gingerbread pieces. I like to use a little bit of vegetable oil to ‘polish’ the cooled isomalt to make them more shiny and see through.
The steps and tips of making a gingerbread greenhouse still remain the same and you can find them in the original blog post, but I’ve updated the template for the gingerbread house so you can recreate it at home much more easily. It is now a to-scale, printable template that you can use to trace out each gingerbread panel so you can skip having to do all the math at home. I stepped up the decor a little this year and had lots of fun piping wreaths, garlands, and string lights for each panel. Another bonus of choosing isomalt over gelatin sheets is that you can decorate directly on the windows. The biggest tip I can give anyone who is wanting to make a gingerbread house is: always decorate before assembling.
If you want to make this gingerbread house, I have an updated and printable template here:
![day two: sparkly matcha neapolitan shortbread cookies ✨
the instructions might seem confusing, but if you watch the video to see how the different flavour layers are stacked, it will make much more sense! these slice and bake cookies freeze extremely well so you can make the dough now and bake them off when you want to gift them. (makes 40-44)
vanilla dough:
85g (1/3 cup + 2 tsp) unsalted butter, room temp
45g (6 tbsp) powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
90g (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
matcha dough:
85g (1/3 cup + 2 tsp) unsalted butter, room temp
45g (6 tbsp) powdered sugar
90g (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
2 tsp culinary matcha powder
1/4 tsp salt
strawberry dough
85g (1/3 cup + 2 tsp) unsalted butter, room temp
45g 6 tbsp) powdered sugar
90g (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
2 tbsp freeze-dried strawberry powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg white
coarse sanding sugar
for the vanilla dough, combine butter and powdered sugar in a bowl. mix until smooth. add vanilla. add flour and salt and mix until no dry streaks remain. do the same for the matcha and strawberry doughs in separate bowls
place one portion of the dough between two pieces of parchment paper and roll into a 5 x 9-inch rectangle that is about 1/4-inch thick. slide rolled out dough onto a baking sheet and freeze for 10 min until firm. repeat this step with the other portions of dough
remove the top piece of parchment from each slab and stack the strawberry, vanilla, and matcha dough layers. cut the slab down the middle the long way to form two 2.5 x 9-inch rectangles. with one half, carefully swap the order of the layers (example: if the first half of the dough is stacked svm, swap the second half so it’s msv. this will ensure that same flavour squares don’t stack on each other). stack the halves. press the layers gently to adhere them. return the stacked dough to the freezer for another 10min
[recipe cont’d in comments]
#christmasbaking #christmascookies #holidaybaking #holidaycookies #cookiedecorating](https://constellationinspiration.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)
Anna says
Hi! Can I know where your red and green baking trays are from? Thanks 🙂