Ann Reardon

Up Gingerbread House 2019

 
To make a gingerbread house from scratch that is this detailed from you need to set aside days not hours. If you don’t have days then there are a few things you should take from this post. Number one: homemade gingerbread tastes one hundred times better than store bought kits. Number two: There are easier templates available here.

To make this UP inspired Gingerbread House you will need:

The Gingerbread House Template

 

3 x the gingerbread house recipe below. I make it in three seperate batches because my bowl is not big enough to make it all at once.

Gingerbread Recipe:

Gingerbread dough recipe
Make 3 batches of this recipe. Note my bowl is 4.8L (1.27 gallons) (1.27 gallons (4.81 litres)) and one batch fills it so unless you have a bigger bowl you will need to make it in batches.
430g (15.17 ounces) or 2 cups plus butter, roughly chopped
430g (15.17 ounces) or 2 cups caster (super fine) sugar
250g (8.82 ounces) or 2/3 cup glucose syrup
260g (9.17 ounces) or 3/4 cup molasses
180 mL (6.09 fluid ounces) or 2/3 cup milk (4%)
1195g (42.15 ounces) or 7 1/2 cups plain flour
12g (0.42 ounces) or 2 tsp bicarb soda
20g (0.71 ounces) or 3 Tbsp cinnamon (optional, you can adjust the quantity of all spices to make it taste how you want)
12g (0.42 ounces) or 2 Tbsp ground cloves (optional)
18g (0.63 ounces) or 3 Tbsp ground ginger (optional)

Preheat the oven to 180C (356 degrees Fahrenheit).

Melt the butter in the microwave or on the stove top. Add in the sugar and syrups and stir to combine. Add the milk and mix again. Then add in all the dry ingredients. Stir until you can not see any more flour. The mixture should be soft. Wrap it up in plastic wrap and put it int he fridge for at least an hour to firm up.

Repeat and make two more batches so you have three batches in total. You will have some left over dough. Do not bake cookies with it until your whole house is assembled. Inevitably with a house this complex you may break a piece or have missed that one of the template bits said ‘x 2’ and need to bake some more.

Cut out all your template pieces and arrange them on baking trays. Split you dough into the number of trays needed and roll it on baking paper to the size of the baking tray. Sprinkle the dough with flour to stop it sticking to the rolling pin.

Cut around the template pieces then leave a border of dough around each piece, see the video for example. remove the template pieces and bake for 10 minutes. Take the tray out of the oven and re-do all the cuts making sure they are straight and all the way through the dough, remove any windows at this stage and return to the oven for 10 minutes more.

Important Tip: Once you’ve baked and cooled you pieces check that they are firm. If not flip them over and put them back onto a baking tray and bake for 10 minutes more. Once they are cool and firm place the template pieces on top again so you know which bit is which.

For gingerbread house assembly you will need:

MDF base board with feet underneath so that you have room for the nut under the board.
A board in the shape of the house (not needed if you don’t want it to float) Click on the link to download the pdf base board for gingerbread house Preferably make this out of thin wooden board rather than cardboard.
Two threaded central support rods. Mine were 50cm (19.69 inches) for the bottom one and 30cm (11.81 inches) for the balloon one
Coupler, 4 nuts and four washers to fit the threaded support rod.

To make the balloon you will need:

gingerbread house pattern how to cook that
900g (31.75 ounces) Marshmallows
900g (31.75 ounces) Rice Bubbles (Rice Krispies)
Dark blue fondant
Sugared almonds or other balloon shaped candy in blue, green, pink, red, yellow, orange and purple

In the image above you will notice that the bunch of balloons is absolutely huge in proportion to the house. I have scaled it down to a more manageable size. If you don’t want to make this aspect of it you can simply buy a few colourful helium balloons to put on top of the house.

up gingerbread house template and recipe

To decorate the gingerbread house I used

850g (29.98 ounces) white compound chocolate to join the house together and add decorations
Lots of fondant, see this post on how to colour fondant
250g (8.82 ounces) bright pink fondant
250g (8.82 ounces) deep sky blue fondant

250g (8.82 ounces) pale wood fondant
300g (10.58 ounces) various browny and grey shades of fondant for the roof, doors and chimney
50g (1.76 ounces) white fondant for the strings
50g (1.76 ounces) grey fondant for the boxes on the side of the house
decorate a gingerbread house
50g (1.76 ounces) Black fondant for the hose reel, number 18 and door knobs.
100g (3.53 ounces) green fondant
100g (3.53 ounces) yellow fondant
200g (7.05 ounces) orange pinky fondant
how to cook that gingerbread house video
mix some of your blue and green to make the hose colour.
150g (5.29 ounces) coconut coloured with green food colouring
1 packet of Oreos crushed
300g (10.58 ounces) milk or dark chocolate for coating the board
gelatin sheets for the windows
A fish scale cutter or use a cheap rose cutter will be helpful for the roof tiles and yellow fish scale cladding.

Follow the directions in the video for assembling and creating the decorations for this house.

up gingerbread house ann reardon video

My Cookbook

ann reardon crazy sweet creations cookbook
Stores that sell my book listed by country: http://bit.ly/ARcookbook
All recipe quantities in the book are in grams, ounces and cups.

23 Comments View Comments

  1. Rating: 4

    Hello! I finally finished it. It took me a lot of time and it’s the first gingerbread house I made. The template is good, but there are a lot of deviations from the video. One part of the roof was missing x2, so I had to bake it afterwards. Some parts I baked were unnecessary. All in all, I’m satisfied with how it turned out. I also watched your video about chocolate and coloring fondant, which made it much easier for me.

    • Looks brilliant, well done!

  2. Rating: 5

    Hello! I’m in the middle of the process of building the house, but I can’t find any instructions on where to drill the base in order for the rod to go to the chimney. Do you have instructions somewhere that I missed? Iva

  3. Rating: 5

    The finishing touch would been the mail box on the side like its out of place and moved the oreo cake dirt to a place where it fits the house starting point and for lols just adding stickfence going under the house instead. 5/5 would eat. 2/5 on me being able to make 1\4 as good result myself. but thats why we love watching skilled ppl just blowing ur minds to bits.

  4. Rating: 3.5

    Really good app I will be back next week week and then I will get

  5. Rating: 5

    What is your gingerbread icing recipe. I have yet to find a good one that holds and yours obviously holds well.

    • Hi she used compound chocolate or baking chocolate she has a video called chocolate secrets and that explains what it is 🙂

  6. Rating: 5

    Hi Ann:) I loved this peace so much I tried it for my very first gingerbread baking! it wasn’t as pretty as I wanted,but my family loved it. I’ve filled the windows with melted candy, and tried to pipe royal icing to make the walls. Guess it was a bit ambitious for a beginner XD. But Thanks to your video and recipe, I had a really fun time making this.
    From South Korea, with a lot of love.

  7. Rating: 5

    Do you by any chance have a recipe for high altitude gingerbread?

  8. Rating: 4

    hi, I am in the middle of making my house, but my printed template keeps sticking to the dough really badly, and when I try to take the template off, it pulls half the dough with it. Do you have any tips?

  9. Rating: 5

    Hi Ann,

    My name is Leah and I’m a longtime follower of yours from Canada.

    After being alerted to the existence of a gingerbread house-building competition at my university last week, I decided to make the house from “Up” – and coincidentally found the old version of your pattern for this house just a day before you posted the 2019 version! Literally mere moments after I er… ‘creatively’ finally finished my somewhat confusing house assembly without instructions, your new video popped up on my youtube feed and I literally laughed out loud!

    Anyhow, I thought I would attach some photos to show you how it turned out. I created mine from 4mm thick gingerbread baked until very very crispy – more like a tough shortbread/sugar cookie consistency (I had no intention of consuming this one – so I wasn’t worried too much about the toughness) and covered it with homemade royal icing and coloured fondant (which I had never actually used before and had fun colouring). The grass is dessicated coconut mixed with green food coloring – (thanks for the tip about watering down the gel food colouring first) and is placed on a wooden cutting board that I made myself too! I created a hook in the chimney in which to attach some real helium balloons, as this competition didn’t allow for structural or inedible materials, and thus, I was unable to build and support the rice crispy/bubble balloon without the roof caving in!

    Thanks for sharing your videos!

    Best,

    Leah K

    P.S. – I have several more photos which give a better overall view of the house but your comment form only allows me to upload one!

    • That looks amazing!!

      • I NEED TO KNOW HOW YOU DID THE MAILBOX. Every time I did the mailbox, it would fall over! (The metal part) I also can’t do the handprints on it which I think is a great touch. How do you keep the silver fondant (if it is fondant) on the brown?

    • Beautiful! I see how you even added the mailbox!

  10. Rating: 5

    Totally amazing, I am constantly impressed by your creativity and skills.

  11. Rating: 5

    Absolutely amazing!!!

  12. Rating: 5

    What Type Of Fondant Did You use?

  13. Rating: 5

    Woman, you are truly insane and have the patience of a saint, WOW, just WOW. How wonderful and whimsical.

  14. Rating: 5

    I would LOVE to see you hack an ikea gingerbread house as your gingerbread video for Christmas 2020!!

  15. Rating: 5

    Omg Ann thats Amazing, I am planning to make a cookie house gift box for my daughter’s class teacher lets see how it goes. u r an amazing person. I showed your debunking vdos to my kids and they were shocked.

  16. Rating: 5

    Fantastic so imaginative

  17. Rating: 5

    Wow! Simply impressive. Waiting to see the brave soul that will attempt this one. Simply outstanding!!!!

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