Gingerbread House Dough

• Mix together ½ cup coconut oil (sub for butter), ¾ cup honey, 4 tsp ground ginger, 4 tsp ground cinnamon and ¼ cup brown sugar in a saucepan. 
• Heat the mixture over medium heat while stirring until everything is melted together.
• Take the saucepan off the heat. 
• In a large mixing bowl add in 6 ½ cups flour, the melted mixture and 1 ¼ cups milk (sub for almond milk).
• Fold the gingerbread dough together (using a wooden spoon or a mixer). The dough will be very stiff and sticky.
• Cover the bowl and place the gingerbread dough into the fridge for 3-4 hours or overnight to firm up.

Baking the Gingerbread House

• Scoop about a cup worth of the gingerbread dough between 2 pieces of baking paper.
• Roll the gingerbread dough to about 1 –1 ½ cm (½ – ¼″) thick.
• Download and print Carina’s Gingerbread House template. Cut out the pieces.
• Put a paper piece of the gingerbread house on a piece of the rolled out dough and use a knife to cut the dough to the shape. Continue until you have all the needed dough pieces.
• Put the gingerbread house pieces into the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up (to prevent them changing shape in the oven).
• Preheat the oven to 180ºC (350ºF). 
• Bake the gingerbread house pieces for 15-20 minutes or until their edges just start to brown. You may need to repeat this step if the pieces don’t fit the oven all together.

Decorating and Assembling the Gingerbread House

• In the bowl of your mixer add 4 egg whites and 2 cups powdered sugar. Beat on medium speed. It would take about 6 minutes until it is done (thick and white).
• Cover the bowl to stop it drying out.
• Decorate all the gingerbread house pieces using a piping bag with a small round nozzle.
• Leave the decorated gingerbread house pieces to completely harden before building the house (Carina recommends about 6 hours). TBH I only wait for them about 2 or 3 hours, because I don’t have enough patience? , but I am trying to be as careful as possible while assembling the house after that.
• For the assembling of the house use a bigger round nozzle.
• Start assembling the gingerbread house by piping a tick line of icing on one of the sides of the four walls and stick it together with another wall. Use mugs to support them while adding additional icing between them.
• Add the next wall the same way and repeat this until you’ve assembled all the four walls.
• Leave them to dry for about 4 hours. This time you have to wait for them to harden completely or they could fall when you add the roof.
• While waiting, stick the two roof pieces together the same way and leave them to harden.
• After the walls and the roof have dried completely, place the roof over the walls and add icing as much as needed between the walls and the roof. It’s okay if the hole between them is bigger – just fill it with more icing! ?
• Finish off by adding the chimney. “Glue” its pieces together, wait it for a while and add it to the top of the roof by piping additional icing.
• You have to be really careful, but patience will be rewarded:  after a night the icing will become one of the strongest things you have at home ? and the gingerbread house – one of the prettiest! ?