Swedish Gingerbread House

To prepare a gingerbread house recipe of Swedish cuisine, you first need to prepare a gingerbread dough. Beat eggs with 50 g of sugar, do not beat well enough until the eggs and sugar are combined.

In a separate bowl, mix the remaining sugar, honey and 4 tbsp. water. Put on medium heat and simmer until sugar dissolves, stirring occasionally.

When the honey syrup has cooled, mix it with the egg mixture, add flour, cocoa, grated ginger, baking powder and other ingredients.

Knead the dough well with your hands, laying it on a floured surface. Wrap the mixed dough with foil and place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

While the dough is in the refrigerator, cut out templates for the house from thick paper. You can take ordinary A4 office paper with a density of 80 g/m². It will take a few sheets of paper, scissors, a ruler and a pencil. From paper cut patterns for the walls and roof of the house. It is not necessary to make a large house, you can cook a few small ones, but you can make small ones at all and assemble a small village.

Roll the cooled dough into a layer approximately 3-5 mm thick. It is best to roll out the dough for the gingerbread house on parchment paper, covering it with a film on top, since the dough is sticky. With the templates attached, cut the walls and roof of the house.

Bake the details of the gingerbread house in an oven preheated to 180°C (355°F) for 15 minutes. Transfer the baked blanks of the Swedish gingerbread house to the wire rack and let it cool, it is best to leave them for a day so that they harden, so it will be easier to work with them.

The glaze for gingerbread houses must be prepared immediately before assembly, otherwise it may freeze. To prepare the icing, mix sugar with water and put on low heat. Boil the syrup, stirring, for 10 minutes. Beat the whites of one egg into a steep, stable foam, and without stopping whipping, pour in a thin stream of syrup, the mass of the glaze should be matte, pour in the lemon juice and continue to whisk for another 10 minutes. The glaze for the gingerbread house should resemble lush, tight foam, like whipped cream from a spray can.

After the walls and the roof of the gingerbread house have hardened and the icing is ready, you can start painting the house. Put the icing in a syringe with a very thin nozzle, you can also use an ordinary plastic bag, cutting off the tip. Apply patterns on the walls and roof of the gingerbread house and set aside for solidification, and cover the glaze, so that it does not freeze, tightly cover with a film. When the patterns on the Swedish gingerbread house harden, you can start assembling. The house is going with the help of the same glaze. At the end of the Swedish gingerbread house you can sprinkle with coconut and powdered sugar, thus simulating snow. Also inside the gingerbread house you can put sweets, or some kind of surprise.