Gingerbread Cottage

Name: Gingerbread Cottage
Yield: Serves 10-12
Ingredients: 200 Jazzies (for the roof); 45 small red sweets; 2 strips of thin red liquorice (each 22cm long); 1 small piece liquorice (for the chimney); 1 small piece of candyfloss (for the smoke); 1 tub hundreds and thousands; 5 Curly Wurlys (for the fence); 1 spray of sugar flowers; 6 tbsp golden syrup; 200 g light muscovado sugar; 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda; 2 tsp ground cinnamon; 700 g plain flour, plus more to dust; 4 tsp ground ginger; 250 g salted butter, very slightly softened and diced; 3 egg yolks; finely grated zest of 1 orange; 250 g white royal icing

Cinnamon-Orange Gingerbread

Preparation info

Serves
10-12

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

The Birthday Cake Book

By Fiona Cairns

Published 2011

About

There’s no reason why a gingerbread house should be reserved for Christmas festivities and covered in snow. It makes a great birthday cake at any time of the year, personalised with favourite sweets or chocolates. It will keep for up to a week, stored in a dry place.

Ingredients

To Bake

700 g plain flour, plus more to dust
4 tsp ground ginger
2

Method

To Bake

Sift the flour, spices and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl and add the butter. Rub together with your fingertips - or tip into a food processor or the bowl of an electric mixer and blend - until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.

Add the egg yolks, sugar, syrup and orange zest and mix until the dough comes together. If it’s too sticky,