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The Perfect Homemade Gingerbread House Recipe

The Cake Mama shares her vegan gingerbread and royal icing recipe to make the perfect gingerbread house from scratch!

Course Baking, Holiday
Cuisine American
Keyword Baking, Gingerbread, holiday
Author The Cake Mama

Ingredients

For the Gingerbread

  • 1/2 cup vegan butter
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 3/4 cup fancy molasses
  • 2 flax eggs*
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1/2 tablespoon ground ginger
  • 1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • water, 1 tbsp at a time if necessary to hold dough together

For the Royal Icing

  • 1 can chickpeas for aquafaba (use water from a can of chickpeas)
  • 1 tablespoon cream of tartar
  • 1-2 2kg bags icing sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (preferably Mexican vanilla)
  • bright white food color, to whiten

Instructions

For the Gingerbread

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Cream butter and sugars in a mixer with the paddle attachment, then add vanilla.

  2. In a small bowl, prepare flax egg and allow to thicken for a few minutes. In a separate bowl combine all dry ingredients. Add flax egg to wet ingredients and combine well. Then add molasses.

  3. Gradually add flour mixture to wet ingredients. If mixture is too sticky, add a little more flour about 1/4c at a time. If mixture is too dry, add water about 1 tbsp at a time. Transfer dough between two pieces of parchment. Cut dough, remove dough scraps and transfer parchment to a cookie sheet for baking. Repeat process for gingerbread house or cookies.

  4. Bake for 8-12 minutes or until edges are slightly darker. If your oven runs hot, start at 8 minutes! Allow to cool completely on cookie sheet before transferring. If making pieces for the house, prepare house one day prior to decorating to allow cookies to crisp and become more sturdy.

For the Royal Icing

  1. Open one can of chickpeas (540ml) and strain liquid. Pour liquid into a mixer with paddle attachment and add cream of tartar. Whip aquafaba on high for about 10 minutes or until mixture has quadrupled in volume and resembles a meringue.

  2. Bring speed down to stir, add vanilla, white food color and slowly add icing sugar. Mixture should be completely stiff- add water 1 tbsp at a time to create a stiff peak consistency. Your icing is ready!

  3. From here, portion out icing about 1 cup and gradually add 1/4 tsp of water until mixture. is at desired consistency.

Recipe Notes

*one flax egg is equal to:1 tbsp ground flax, 3 tbsp warm water