One of the most amazing crafts on New Year and a Christmas one you can make with your kids is a gingerbread house. Why? Because, firstly, it is incredibly beautiful. Secondly, it is very tasty. And, most importantly, the very process of creating a gingerbread house with your own hands will give you a fabulous, New Year's mood and create a festive atmosphere at home.

To bake a gingerbread house, you first need to prepare gingerbread dough for it. There are many different recipes for gingerbread dough. It should be noted that many of them are quite complex and time consuming. We have chosen for you the simplest, but at the same time very delicious recipe dough for gingerbread house. The finished gingerbread house is soft, tasty and incredibly aromatic! The gingerbread house according to our recipe is stored for a long time and does not go stale. Note that at first the gingerbread house will be hard, but over time (after a couple of days) it will soften. Keep in mind that such gingerbread cookies and gingerbread houses should not be stored in a box so that they absorb moisture.

Gingerbread dough:

- 350 g honey
- 1 large egg
- 150 g sugar
- 200 g margarine
- 2 tsp. cocoa
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- spices: vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, anise, cloves, ginger
- 750 g flour (approximate amount)

Heat honey, sugar, margarine until sugar dissolves. The mass should not boil. Remove from heat and let cool slightly. Mix the gingerbread house dough with all the other ingredients. Roll into a ball and refrigerate for a couple of hours.

Gingerbread house master class.

All the details of the future gingerbread house are cut out from rolled out dough and baked separately, decorated, and only then glued together with icing. As you can see, it is quite difficult to make a gingerbread house with your own hands. But it’s interesting, tasty and beautiful!

The operating procedure is as follows:

1. Make a pattern of 4 sides of a gingerbread house + 2 roof parts from cardboard. Mark the windows and doors.

2. Roll out the dough. The thickness of the rolled out layer of dough for a gingerbread house should be about 5 mm.

3. Cut out the prepared gingerbread house pieces from the dough.

4. Cut out windows and doors with a sharp knife or using cutters.

5. Bake the gingerbread house parts at 180 degrees for about 12 minutes until done. Cool.

6. Decorate every piece of the gingerbread house with icing, gummies, candies, etc. even before the product is assembled. This is one of the most creative steps in making gingerbread houses. Let the kids help you decorate your own gingerbread house.

7. Gather the four sides of the gingerbread house together by gluing them together at the seams with icing. Dry. Go over the glaze again inside and outside for strength. Dry it.

Protein glaze recipe: 1 protein, approximately 200 g. powdered sugar; beat everything together using a mixer or whisk.

8. Glue the roof to the gingerbread house. Dry.

The charming gingerbread house is ready! You can insert a safe LED candle (or a regular candle in a glass) inside the finished gingerbread house, then it will be beautifully lit from the inside.

Flat gingerbread houses also look good. In addition, they are faster and easier to make than classic ones.

We told you step by step and showed you how you can make gingerbread dough at home and bake a gingerbread house from it. Here we want to point out that often working mothers do not have time to make a gingerbread house completely themselves from start to finish. To help them the famous Bakery "Sofi"(their website address is gingerbreadhouse.rf) prepared creativity set "Gingerbread house".

This kit contains everything you need to make your own gingerbread house. These are ready-made gingerbread house parts, decorations, powdered sugar for making glaze. You will find all the decorations as in the photo below in the set.

It will take you very little time to make this original craft for the New Year with your children. Ready gingerbread house from Bakery "Sofi"(their website address is gingerbreadhouse.rf) will become one of the main decorations of the festive New Year's table. Also this wonderful gift for loved ones for the New Year, which the child will make himself, with his own hands. Separately, we note that ginger-honey gingerbread from Bakery "Sofi"(their website address is gingerbreadhouse.rf) are made exclusively from natural products and do not contain preservatives.

The New Year's time is coming - a time of miracles, when everyone can feel a little like a helper to the kindest old man in the world. After all, think about it, if in addition to gifts for the children of the whole planet, the old grandfather also had to decorate our houses, how would he manage to do everything? That is why we, adults, help him in every possible way, because it is impossible for children to stop believing in Santa Claus.

Decorating your home is the most important task in the process of creating a New Year's mood. Buying ready-made decorative elements in a store is not difficult, but making New Year decorations with your own hands is something completely different! In this article you will find more than 20 master classes and schemes for creating New Year's houses. At first glance, it may seem to an unprepared person that creating a New Year's house from paper, cardboard or any other materials is an impossible task. In fact, this is not the case, especially if you have ready-made template. So, if you are serious, then get ready to become a real builder, because in this article you will find diagrams of not only single houses, but also entire winter villages!

You can make a very beautiful New Year's house with your own hands from an ordinary cardboard box. The inside of the box is usually brown, which, in fact, works to our advantage. The box will have to be gutted and turned inside out. Draw a house template and cut it out. Next we glue the walls and floor. You can leave the top with an improvised roof and use the house as a gift box, or you can glue a full roof and put it under the Christmas tree. You can draw on top of the cardboard with a special white marker, white gouache or regular corrector. Externally, the house is very reminiscent of the gingerbread delicacy that is common in the Western world. Well, you and I are familiar with the gingerbread house from the famous fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm “Hansel and Gretel”. If your children have not heard it yet, then it’s time to read this story, and a homemade gingerbread house from a cardboard box will be an excellent attribute for a small dramatization!

More Gift Boxes:

On the eve of the New Year holidays, store windows are full of gift boxes, decorative bags, and wrapping paper for every taste. Smiling sellers helpfully offer to provide packaging services New Year's gifts. And it all seems great, because you must agree, it’s much nicer to receive a New Year’s trinket in beautiful packaging. But on the other hand, the whole meaning of the gift is lost, the very gift that should […]

If you are planning to make not just a house, but an entire Christmas village, then you will definitely need a church. Print out our finished diagram, cut it out of cardboard, glue it in the right places and the church layout is ready. Now all that remains is to decorate it with sparkles and artificial snow to make the church truly winter. You can download the finished diagram below.

So, the church is ready, now all that remains is to build the houses of the local residents. Download the finished diagram from the link below, cut it out of cardboard, glue the house and decorate it. Who should be accommodated in the houses? Anyone! Little dolls, pine cone elves, or any other residents you have. If there is little Grandfather frost, then feel free to move him in too! You'll get a whole residence!

If there are any problems with cardboard, then you can easily make a New Year’s house from salt dough. You can use it as a candlestick, it looks very cool. So get ready salt dough, roll it out to about 1-1.5 cm thick. Cut out the walls, windows and door. This can be done with special molds, and if there are none, then use a stationery knife and a ruler. Glue all the walls and glue the roof. Cover the joints with the remaining dough. When the house is dry, sand the rough edges with a sanding knife and enjoy your creation!

Cute houses in the style of Danish architecture can be made using this scheme. At the link below you will find diagrams of all three houses, which you just need to print and bend along the lines. Place an electric candle inside, turn off the lights and enjoy the city's winter landscape!

If you love corn flakes or, like true Englishmen, eat oatmeal in the morning, then you will probably have cardboard boxes of the appropriate sizes. Below is a step-by-step master class on how to make a New Year's house with your own hands from a cardboard box. Follow the instructions carefully and you will succeed!

Excellent New Year's houses are made from magazine clippings. Find a picture of a suitable house or castle, cut it out and glue it in a circle. Place an electric candle inside and enjoy.

Wonderful New Year's houses can be made from plain white paper, decorating some parts (roof and windows) with sparkles. You can download ready-made templates from the link below. Watch the step-by-step instructions and make your own New Year's house!

If you have accumulated a lot greeting cards, you can make wonderful houses out of them, which you can use to decorate your apartment, combining them into garlands. Or you can use these postcard houses to congratulate friends and acquaintances. You will find step-by-step instructions for making houses from old open doors below.

You can make craft houses not only from paper or cardboard. Felt is also an excellent material for making. The manufacturing process is incredibly simple; step-by-step instructions can be found below. All that remains is to get some felt and an electric candle. The New Year's craft house is ready!

With our ready-made scheme and step by step instructions You can make a whole city, especially if your team has little fidgets ready for handicrafts. You will also need electronic candles or you can use a New Year's garland. Add some mini Christmas trees and the New Year's city is ready! And most importantly, the whole family is in a New Year's mood!

New Year's houses can also be made from scrap materials, which is especially great when these materials are no longer suitable for use, such as milk packaging. If you look at it, the house is almost ready, all that remains is to make the roof and adjust the size of the house itself. If the box doesn’t look very presentable, you can cover it with paper and draw windows and doors, but if you’re happy with everything, then the craft house is ready!

From this step by step wizard class you will learn how to make a simple New Year's house from ordinary cardboard. The main difficulty lies in the template, and if you do not have spatial vision and architectural education, drawing something more or less complex on paper is quite difficult. Therefore, using the link below you can download a ready-made diagram of the house and glue it together yourself.

Download the finished house template, cut and glue. The DIY Christmas house craft is ready!

Download this simple template, print and cut out. In our instructions, the house is made from an old music book. You can make from plain white paper or “draft paper”. A little decor, an electric candle and Voila! Your DIY paper house is ready!

If you don’t have time to tinker with voluminous houses, but want to decorate your apartment with the whole city, then this option is especially for you. You will need a sheet of Whatman paper (thick) in A2 format, a printed template and stationery knife. From the links below you can download two various options cities. Finished diagrams are printed on A4 sheets, printed out, glued and transferred directly to whatman paper for cutting.

Getting ready for the New Year with the children and making Santa Claus's house out of paper. Download the finished template, print it and glue it together. Young designers will be delighted!

As already noted, house crafts can be made from a variety of materials, including wooden sticks. Popsicle sticks are quite suitable for this job, but you had to collect them all year. In any case, you can take notes on the idea and be sure to do it next year!

A very cute New Year's house can be made from paper tubes. For this you will need: thin paper, scissors, glue, pencil, decorative elements. Cut the paper into strips of the same size. Wrap the paper strip around a pencil and glue it with glue, remove the pencil. You will need about 50 tubes to make a house like in the master class. When the base is ready, glue on the roof, and then the windows and other decorative elements.

Incredible New Year's houses can be made from felt. Volumetric or flat, in the form of gingerbread houses or clocks. In addition, felt houses can be used to decorate pillows or socks for gifts. You will find the finished patterns under the photo.

New Year's holidays are a magical time, not only for children, but also for adults. On the eve of the New Year, you can make a lot of wonderful things with your own hands: decorations for the home, toys for the Christmas tree and other wonderful crafts.

This time is ideal for creative activities with children; joint handicrafts bring parents and children closer together.

The New Year is probably the most anticipated holiday, which is why preparation for it is always thorough. At this time, I want to come up with something original, decorate the house in a special way, create unique decor.

Children who have recently learned to walk and older children with great joy dress up christmas tree, decorate the Christmas tree with toys and snowflakes made with their own hands. Together with your kids you can make cute Christmas trees, gifts for relatives and friends, a variety of decorative elements handmade for decoration and festive decoration of your home.

Of course, you can buy almost any decorations in stores, but it’s much more interesting to make them yourself. And we offer you one wonderful idea with which you can decorate your home for the holiday in a stylish and original way, and organize your leisure time in an interesting and useful way.

Make a homemade New Year's house: such a thing will become a magnificent element of the decor of your home. This craft will help create a fabulous atmosphere and give you the feeling of a holiday even before it arrives.

Following the instructions for creating such a masterpiece, you can design several miniature houses decorated in a New Year's theme and give them as a gift to your loved ones. And if you install a garland or a small lantern inside such a fairy-tale house, it will become even more beautiful, will attract the eye with its radiance and bestow a festive mood.

Creating a New Year's atmosphere with the help of such crafts is as easy as shelling pears.

Don’t forget that a homemade New Year’s house is an excellent present. Such a gift will demonstrate your creative skills and certainly will not seem banal. Similar things are also sold in stores, but a factory product, which not everyone can afford, can always be distinguished from a handmade craft.

A house decorated in accordance with the New Year's theme, created with your own hands, will become a budget-friendly and at the same time original gift.
You can make a New Year's house from various materials, and it won't take much time.

How to make a souvenir New Year's house with your own hands - let's look at the most popular options in photos and pictures.

Cardboard

To create such a miracle you will need the following materials and tools:

cardboard white;
stationery knife;
sheets of paper;
glue in the form of a pencil;
scissors;
paints;
decorative elements;
ruler.

If possible, buy a latex primer, but it is not necessary.

You can use miniature toys, tinsel, glitter, artificial snow or cotton wool as decorations.

Below is a step-by-step master class on making a winter house in the photo:

Having prepared the materials, you can begin the process of creating a winter house.

You can make a house for the New Year out of paper using ready-made diagrams and templates for cutting. To do this, download the pattern you like and print it out on a printer, then cut out the parts, glue them and decorate them at your discretion.

From twisted paper tubes

A winter house made from tubes rolled out of paper looks very interesting. White walls evoke winter.

To implement this idea, you will need the following things:

loose paper;
cardboard sheet;
glue;
scissors;
paints (can be replaced with felt-tip pens);
simple pencil;
decorative elements.

From each leaf you need to form a tube. To make it more convenient, use a pencil - wrap the paper around it.

Note! The sheets can be divided into equal parts and then made into tubes, in which case their size will be smaller.

From the created tubes, make walls (there should be four of them) and two roof blanks. The resulting parts of the house need to be glued together.

Draw windows and a door on a paper or cardboard base, cut them out with scissors and glue them to the walls of your house.

Decorate New Year's craft and place it on a shelf so that it is clearly visible, or give it to someone close to you.

Model of New Year's house No. 2 made of paper and cardboard

To bring another idea to life, you will need the following list of consumables:

cardboard sheet (designer cardboard is needed) in size corresponding to the parameters of the house. If desired, you can use cardboard in two different colors: one shade for the walls, and the second for the roof and decorating windows and doors. A sheet of cardboard will also be needed for the base on which the house will be located;
a small piece of translucent film to imitate glass in windows;
glue;
diagram of a cardboard winter house (draw it yourself or use a ready-made template with a blank);
glitter (preferably small);
scissors;
artificial snowball;
a flat brush with a rounded brush at the end.

Many people are interested in how long it will take to create a New Year's house. This option will take about 4 hours to make. As for complexity, you can give it 7 points out of 10. Don’t be afraid that you won’t be able to cope - if you wish, you can make the most complex craft: work carefully and slowly, and you will definitely succeed.

Get creative on the weekend so you don't have to rush.

Step-by-step master class with detailed instructions

Our magic house is almost ready. All that remains is to decorate the windows and doors and glue the house onto a cardboard base.

The craft does not have to be glued: you can simply place it on top of the base, having previously decorated the New Year's house with homemade doors. Decorating the space around the craft Christmas balls, spruce branches, rain and pine cones, you will get an original holiday composition that can be used to decorate a windowsill, table, interior or as an exhibit for a kindergarten.

In the evening, you can light an LED candle inside the house. Such luminous decor will create a fabulous atmosphere in your home.

Gingerbread

To create a gingerbread masterpiece, prepare the dough and glaze.

To prepare the dough according to the recipe, you need the following ingredients:

three glasses of flour;
50 gr. honey;
100 ml medium thick sour cream;
100 gr. oils 80% fat;
testicle;
3 large spoons of cognac (can be replaced with another alcoholic drink);
50 ml water;
large spoon of cocoa powder.

If desired, you can add spices.

To make the glaze (icing), mix the egg white with a glass (or a little less) of powdered sugar.

In addition to the dough and icing, you will need paper and a pencil with a ruler.

Step by step instructions:

Draw a sketch on a piece of paper.
Cut out the pieces with scissors.
To make the dough, sift the flour through a sieve.
Dissolve honey in heated water. Let the mixture cool slightly (maximum to 39 degrees) and add 1/2 of the sifted flour, mix all the ingredients well with a wooden spatula so that there are no lumps.
Leave the dough to cool, but be sure to cool in the room.
Beat the egg in a cup. Then pour it into the dough and knead again.
Add other ingredients to the dough (sour cream and butter, alcohol and spices).
Add the rest of the flour and add 1 large spoonful of cocoa powder to color the dough.
Knead the dough so that it does not stick to your hands and the table, roll it out to a maximum thickness of 1 cm, apply the pattern and form the elements of the house.
In an oven heated to 220 degrees, bake all elements for 10-12 minutes.

Preparing the glaze

In the recipe, the amount of ingredients is indicated per serving. And for the New Year's house you will need three servings (the egg should be large).

Separate the whites and mix them with a fork (do not beat!).

Slowly add the powdered sugar, two small spoons at a time, and mix again.

It is important that the prepared icing is not very thick; if necessary, dilute it with a small amount of chilled water (a small spoon will be enough).

Decorate the cooled roof parts with glaze. If you want, you can first make a template on a checkered paper sheet, and then a cornet (food paper is used to form it). The cornet is filled with glaze (a grid is applied, and after cooling, a pattern is applied).

Decorate all the components of the gingerbread house with icing using a thin stick. Commit circular movements to better distribute the glaze.

Advice: It is advisable to leave the icing on the walls and roof for several hours (preferably overnight) until it is completely dry. The next day, apply designs in the form of snowflakes and beads.

For other gingerbread products, apply icing with the addition of food coloring pigments.

Assembly

Trim the walls around the edges slightly at a 45-degree angle to make joining easier.

Cover the joints of the walls with icing and connect the structure. Use containers filled with water to support the sides until the icing hardens.

After the wall seams have hardened, attach the roof in the same way, placing supports so that it does not move.

For greater authenticity, form icicles from the glaze. Squeeze large drops onto the edges, and then stretch along the roof. Snowflakes are also created with icing, they are first drawn on film.

With such a house you can decorate and New Year's table, guests will definitely appreciate the delicious decoration that you prepared yourself. By the way, you can make such a New Year’s house from salt dough. By covering such a craft with colorless varnish, you will save it until the next New Year without any problems.

If you are worried that you won’t have the materials needed to create a New Year’s house at home, buy a ready-made kit. But it’s much more interesting to do everything yourself, involving children in the creative process - they will be delighted with such work.

A New Year's house with or without light, a winter yard is a full-fledged festive composition that will decorate the window if placed on the windowsill. This craft will decorate any pre-New Year exhibition of homemade compositions for the New Year:

As you can see, the materials from which you can make a miniature house to decorate a room New Year's holidays, so many. You can use cardboard, paper and other available materials available in every home. This work is not so difficult, and most importantly, extremely interesting, both for children and adults.

Create a small masterpiece with your own hands by getting your kids involved. During the creative process you are guaranteed to receive a lot of positive emotions. Well, the result in the form of a beautiful New Year’s house will delight not only you, but also those around you.

Detailed instructions and tutorial videos will guide you through the creative process.

Video

One more beautiful model You can make a winter house by watching this video:

Pie - belly friend

GINGERBREAD HOUSE. Part 1 - all the secrets of mastery.

Hello, dear hostesses. Today we will bake a gingerbread house. From the very beginning to the bitter end. The article turned out to be big. But this is because I told all the secrets and nuances. I laid straws wherever a novice cook might fall.

I set a goal for myself warn you against all possible mistakes in advance so that you get a wonderful gingerbread house the first time.

You will know all the tricks and all the tricks. I will offer you a choice several ways to glue a gingerbread house, and you will choose the one that seems most convenient for you.

And if you still have any questions, ask them in the comments to this article.

I’ll tell you the time right away so you know , How many hours will the entire process of making a gingerbread house take?

Kneading dough 20 minutes + time to keep it in the refrigerator for 1 hour (so make the dough the night before, in cellophane and in the refrigerator it will last well even for a couple of days)
House drawing on cardboard for 20 minutes (can also be done ahead of time)
Rolling out the dough And cutting out parts gingerbread house 10 min
Baking 15 min
Preparing glaze for gluing and decorating(while the house is baking for the same 15 minutes)
Decoration details cream and culinary tinsel 10-30 min (depending on you)
Assembling a gingerbread house(20-30 min), with assistants faster (or slower).
Drying the house(10 min if my way)
Roof installation(20 -40 minutes, if you also use toothpicks, you will quickly fix it)
Decorating a gingerbread house sweets, cream, laying edible tiles on the house (from 30 minutes to infinity, because there is no limit to perfection).

The minimum is 3 hours without rest breaks and with the condition that the dough has already been in the refrigerator for the allotted time.

Many housewives make a gingerbread house not in one day, but in stages:

1 day – dough and baking walls for gingerbread house
Day 2 – gluing a gingerbread house
Day 3 – decoration, decoration of gingerbread house

If you want the process to be a little faster, you can make a simplified version of a gingerbread house in the form of a gingerbread hut.

Or make a house from ready-made store-bought cakes (by the way, there are cakes specifically for gingerbread houses with cut-out windows), or from chocolate bars, or from large cookies(photo below).

Step 1. Prepare the dough

200 g butter (crush with a fork or chop with a knife)

5 spoons of liquid honey(if the honey is candied, heat it in a water bath or very low heat, stirring continuously)

200 g sugar

1 packet of baking powder

4 egg yolks(!!! Before separating the yolks from the whites, read the instructions below)

4 cups flour(this is approximately, depends on the size of the eggs)

Salt And Spices of your choice, 1 tsp each.: ground ginger, cinnamon, zest of 1 lemon, cardamom, anise

ATTENTION!!! Instructions for properly separating whites from yolks

We will need the whites from these eggs for gluing and decorating the house. We will beat them with powdered sugar. In order for the protein cream to turn out as it should, follow the following rules:

1. Break the eggs with clean and DRY hands, and the whites should also plop into the DRY bowl. One drop of water - and it's all gone.

2. Not a single particle of yolk should get into the whites - otherwise the cream will not form a foam (separate the white from each egg over a separate dry bowl and, if it separates without any yolk, pour it from the bowl into a bowl with other whites).

3. Since we will be whipping the cream later, when we put the walls of the house up to bake, place the dishes with the whites much higher so as not to accidentally splash water into it.

So, from the above ingredients, knead the dough, wrap it in film and put it in the refrigerator for an hour or two. Let it lie there, and we’ll go cut out a template of our future house from paper.

Step 2. Cut out the template from cardboard

If you are not confident in your own architectural or culinary abilities, then you can make a simplified design of a gingerbread house - a kind of gingerbread hut (see photo above). As you can see in the photo, such a gingerbread house does not have side walls, only triangular facades and a roof. A very convenient option for those who prefer a simpler design.

You choose the dimensions of the gingerbread house yourself - for the above amount of dough the height of the facade of your house should be equal in size to your palm. The main thing is that the parts fit together in size. I depicted how to achieve this in the diagram below using the example of a drawing of a simple gingerbread house.

As you can see, the matching sizes of the parts are as follows:

The side wall must be the same height as the side of the front (value b)

And the roof slope is the same length as the side side (value b) and the same height as the upper line of the slope of the front part (value a), the height of the slope can be made larger so that the roof overhangs in the form of a canopy.

Step 3. Roll out the dough and cut out the pieces

Chilled dough place on parchment or paper and roll it out with a rolling pin. Be sure to lay parchment down; it is needed to transfer our cut out house parts onto a baking tray. If you carry parts in your hands, they can stretch, become deformed, and then when assembling the house they will not match each other in size.

The thickness of the dough layer should be at least 0.5 cm.

The picture below shows one trick, allowing you to roll out the dough to an even thickness. On the sides of the dough, even before rolling, we place 2 slats with the height we need 0.5 cm and roll out the dough by rolling our rolling pin along these slats (a foam profile from a hardware store is ideal as slats; a 2-meter profile costs half a dollar).

On the rolled out dough put a cardboard template and cut it out with a knife, very convenient to cut with a pizza wheel. You can immediately cut out windows on the raw dough, or later on the baked parts (see photo below). From the remains of the dough we cut out figures of Christmas trees, animals, a pipe, a porch, a fence - whatever your imagination tells you and what the dough is enough for.

Right on the parchment where we rolled out, and transfer the figures to a baking sheet, cutting off a piece of parchment with the part with scissors (photo below, left).

The baking tray must be level, otherwise the house may also end up with curved walls (and try connecting them later).

We bake the gingerbread house parts at a temperature of about 200-220 gr. WITH(medium heat) approx. 10-12 minutes. Remove from the oven as soon as the cakes are already yellow, but not yet brown (photo above, right). While the cakes are hot, you can easily cut out windows from them if you want.

But it’s better not to overdo it at first, because you can simply paint windows on the walls of the house with protein cream, like here:

And when you bake your next gingerbread house, you can not only cut out the windows, but also “glaze” with marmalade or caramel.

Step 4. Make glaze for decoration and gluing

Ingredients: for 1 protein, 200 gr. powdered sugar + 1 tsp. lemon juice (or a little vinegar, or dry citric acid). Acid is needed not only for taste; thanks to it, the glaze turns out to be more elastic, tight, and sticky.

If you don't have powdered sugar , don’t worry, I’ll tell you a secret, I personally always make this same glaze with regular sugar. The main thing here is that there is sugar fine-crystalline, so to speak, finely ground (this is often found on sale), such sugar has time to melt in the egg white during the beating process. And to ensure that it melts (even coarsely crystalline ones), even before whipping, you can simply let it sit in lightly beaten egg whites, it will melt during this time, and the cream, after whipping with sugar, will also turn out as it should. Beat the whites gradually adding sugar with a tablespoon until the foam becomes stiff and standing as in the photo below. You can also make your own powdered sugar, resins sugar in a coffee grinder.

In the photo below, I made and photographed 2 types of glaze in the first bowl from sugar, in the second from powdered sugar - there is no difference in stickiness, moreover, from sugar it tastes much better, and is also cheaper. That's why I personally choose sugar icing - and you can try both and decide for yourself which one you prefer.

Process:

First, beat the whites without anything until they form a foam, then gradually add the powder, one tablespoon at a time, without stopping beating. As soon as the cream becomes tight and holds its shape, it is ready, even if you did not pour out all the powder. Eggs also come in different sizes. For small eggs, you don’t need as much powder as in the recipe.

If desired glaze can be tinted by adding cocoa or food coloring.

ATTENTION, dyes for easter eggs, are suitable only if they do not contain salt, or if the packaging contains the inscription “Can be used for confectionery" You don't want a salty glaze.

Because the glaze has the properties to harden quickly, then after cooking it is better to cover it with a damp (not wet) towel. Otherwise, while you are fiddling with the cakes, the icing will harden, but if you work quickly (in the spirit of Yulia Vysotskaya), then you don’t need a towel; the icing will not harden in half an hour.

Better yet, cook first one portion of glaze from 2 egg whites(for decorating the walls of the house), and then a second batch of glaze(for gluing house parts). It will be smarter that way.

Step 5. Decorate the walls

Even before gluing the gingerbread house together, we paint the walls and roof.

It is convenient to write using pastry syringe or pastry bag. But if you have neither one nor the other, then read the following note:

How to make a pastry bag yourself in 1 minute.

We take a regular stationery file (or a clean, thick cellophane bag), cut off (straightly or diagonally) the bottom corner to make a tiny hole, load a portion of cream into the file and roll up the top of the file (like a carpet) and fix it with a stapler in several places (if not in stapler at home, paper clips will do, or you can sew it up with a needle and thread). Done - you can extrude patterns.

We draw windows, decorate with small candies, multi-colored confectionery sprinkles, almonds, and glue patterns cut from ordinary marmalade.

You can depict a Christmas tree on one of the walls. Paint it with white cream and stick it with candies like toys, or lay out a Christmas tree using the mosaic technique of triangular-shaped marmalades.

The roof can also be decorated before assembly, but I find it more convenient to decorate the roof already on the gingerbread house itself. I posted a lot of ideas for decorating a house in a special article , there you will also find many photographs of different gingerbread houses.

Step 6. Select a base

Decide right away what your gingerbread house will stand on.. This could be another dough crust, an elegant dish, a tray, a cutting board, or a candy box. Once you glue the house together, you will not be able to transfer it to another dish. You will only move it along with the base on which you will glue it.

It is not advisable to choose dishes made of plastic. Because when you want your house, glued with protein cream, to harden in 10 minutes in a warm oven (and not in 3-4 hours indoors), you will not be able to do this, since plastic releases toxins when heated, and this is for us Of course it's not necessary.

Take the cakes and, without gluing, join them on this base, see if the house fits on the dish, if the parts fit together. If there are uneven, lopsided walls somewhere, now is the time to straighten them with a knife.

Step 7. Choosing what to glue the house together with

1. Protein glaze

See the white glaze recipe above. It is convenient to apply the glaze for gluing parts using a pastry bag or little bag (read a little higher on how to make a little bag yourself in 1 minute), or just with a spoon.

If the icing doesn't stick well to the cake, lightly moisten the gluing area with water using a brush. The glaze can be applied simultaneously to both parts in the places where they are glued, and then pressed against each other. Hold it with your hands for a while, and then simply support the walls with improvised jars. And so, together with the jars, send them to dry.

To make the gingerbread house glue faster, I do this: I heat the empty oven until hot, but not red-hot. I TURN OFF the OVEN (that is, the fire does not burn in the oven!!!) and place my gingerbread house in this heated environment for 2-10 minutes. The time depends on the “degree of heating” of the oven. I open it periodically and check it with my finger. When our protein cream begins to turn into marshmallows (you will feel this to the touch, or the cream may look slightly browned around the edges) - carefully take it out. Your gingerbread house is held together with strong frosted cream.

2. Melted chocolate

MELTED CHOCOLATE (melt the tiles in a steam bath, this chocolate glue quickly hardens, and the house does not need to be held additionally after gluing.

3. Caramel glue

CARAMEL GLUE : 100 gr. sugar + 2 tbsp. water + a little bit of citric acid.

Acid is needed to prevent the “saccharification” of caramel. Anyone who has made caramel knows that sometimes it does not crystallize into candy, but is completely candied into fragile crumbs. But citric acid will not allow this.

Cook the sugar and water at a light bubbling stage, stirring continuously until a drop of such syrup begins to crystallize on a cold saucer, that is, harden into caramel.

4. Butterscotch glue

TOFFEE GLUE: 100 gr. sugar and 2 tbsp. Cook the sour cream at the boiling stage, stirring continuously until a drop of such syrup, dropped into a glass of cold water, lands on the bottom of this glass in the form of a soft toffee that stretches to the touch.

During cooking, you can add a spoonful of cocoa to this toffee glue - you get chocolate toffee.

You need to glue the parts of the house with hot glue, until the glue cools down. That is, either act very quickly, or keep the pan with the syrup in a hot water bath (that is, immerse a small pan with hot sweet glue in the pan larger size with boiling water in it).

Gluing with caramel, toffee or chocolate looks something like this.

Keep the remaining caramel in a boiling water bath so that it does not harden. We will need it as an excellent glue for laying tiles on the roof of a gingerbread house. And if you want to glaze windows with such caramel, read this article.

Step 8. Making the tiles

Now we glue the roof in the same way. This connection must be as strong as possible so that the roof halves do not move off the house.

Some people attach the roof by inserting skewers or toothpicks in the place where the roof meets the front facade of the house.

I simply apply a generous amount of white glaze to the top edges of the gingerbread house walls and once the 2 halves of the roof are fitted, I immediately apply a thick layer of sticky cream along the entire ridge (top of the roof). The glued roof can be supported on both sides suitable size jars until the glue completely hardens .

Once the roof is glued, you can lay tiles:

The tiles can be simply painted with egg white glaze, lined with almonds, chocolate bars, crunchy pads, jelly beans, or whatever you like. You can glue tiles for white glaze or caramel glue. You will read more about the types of sweet tiles and how to lay them in our next article - there you will also learn many more techniques for decorating a gingerbread house.