Gingerbread is a favourite at Christmas time, with sugar-and-spice flavours are delightful whether it’s in biscuit, person or house form. These super-cute gingerbread cookies are shaped like houses and easy to make, so they are perfect if you don’t have the time (or patience) to put a whole gingerbread house together. They also look lovely hanging from your Christmas tree and make great edible gifts for family and friends.
Ingredients
Method
Beat butter, syrup and sugar in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until creamy and paler in colour. Add egg yolk; beat until just combined. Add combined sifted flour and spices; stir until mixture just comes together.
Knead dough gently on a lightly floured surface until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes or until firm.
Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease oven trays and line with baking paper.
Roll dough on a lightly floured surface until 3mm thick. Using a 5cm square cutter or cardboard template, cut out 39 squares. Cut 13 of the squares in half to form two triangles.
Arrange squares on trays about 3cm apart. Place a triangle on top of each square slightly overlapping to form a house shape, then press gently over the join to seal. Make a small hole in the top of each house, not too close to the edge, using a skewer.
Bake cookies for 10 minutes or until light golden. Stand cookies on trays for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool.
Stir chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl over a medium saucepan of simmering water until smooth (don’t let water touch base of bowl).
Fill the piping bag with melted chocolate and cut a small hole from the tip of the bag. Pipe chocolate onto biscuits using picture as a guide. Stand for 15 minutes or until chocolate is set.
Thread ribbon through hole to hang biscuits.
Tips and notes for your gingerbread cookie houses
- Sifting the flour and spices before mixing them with the wet ingredients helps prevent clumps in the dough, so make sure you include this step.
- After separating the egg yolk, you can store the egg white in an airtight container in the fridge for up to two days, or in the freezer for up to three months. Use it for meringues, coconut ice, omelettes or any other recipes that call for egg whites.
- Gingerbread cookies usually last around 5 days when stored in an airtight container. But for Christmas tree decorations, aim to make them as close the day as possible.
- Keep in mind that humidity could make the gingerbread cookies softer when left out or stored at room temperature.
- If you’re making these gingerbread cookie houses as gifts, you could also put them in a gingerbread gift box for the ultimate edible present.
What are gingerbread cookies made of?
The ingredients for traditional gingerbread cookies include flour, ground ginger, sugar, egg and golden syrup or molasses depending on the recipe. Some gingerbread cookies also include other spices like the cinnamon and cloves in this recipe, nutmeg or even a spice mix. There are plenty of variations, as gingerbread recipes date back hundreds of years.
For this recipe, we’ve also used white chocolate to decorate the cookies and make them look like miniature gingerbread houses. But you’ll also find recipes that use royal icing, such as our easy gingerbread house or vintage gingerbread people, which also goes to show that you can make gingerbread in plenty of different shapes and styles.
