Gingerbread Cottage

This delightful cottage keeps up to 1 week and is very east to do. I will be posting a template on the pictures that can be easily recreated at home with some cardboard and a ruler. you will need a 30 cm silver cake board. From BBC goodfood magazine.

• Ready In: 42 mins
• Serves: 8
• Yields: 1 cottage

Ingredients

• for the walls and roof

• 650  g self-raising flour
• 3  teaspoons ginger
• 3  teaspoons cinnamon
• 175  g butter, cut into cubes
• 225  g dark brown sugar
• 175  g black treacle
• 2  eggs, beaten

• to decorate

• 2 (120 g)  tubes ready to use white  icing
•  chocolate, flake bars
• 400  g marshmallows, white mini
• 200  g icing sugar, sifted
• 2  coloured  lolly pops
•  chocolate, buttons and
•  candy cane, to decorate

Directions

1. Place flour, ginger, cinnamon and butter in a food processor and pulse until they resemble breadcrumbs( do this in 2 batches if the bowl is small).
2. Combine treacle sugar and egg in a large mixing bowl. Tip in the flour and stir, then bring the dough together with your hands.
3. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth.
4. Cover and chill for at least an hour.
5. Pre heat oven to 180C and line 3 baking sheets with non stick baking paper.
6. Divide the dough into 3 and roll out to the thickness of a £1 coin. Using the templates cut out 2 of each for the roof the sides and the front.
7. Re roll the scraps and make christmas trees and 1 gingerbread men.
8. Bake for about 12 minutes or until JUST firm.Leave to cool in pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
9. To assemble the house, pipe a door on the front and a window on the side using the icing.
10. Pipe icing generously along the bottom edges of the pieces and attach to the board, then join all the sides.
11. Use the flake bars to support the inside of the house by laying them behind the walls on the floor of the house.
12. Fix the roof of the cottage and leave to set overnight befor decorating.
13. stick the marsmallows all over the roof, using the ready icing as glue. Fix chocolate buttons around the door and a sweet as adoor knob and use more chocolate buttons to cover the corner joints. Make icicles hanging from the roof by making a pea sized blob and pulling downwards to break off.
14. Mix the icing sugar with drops of water to form a thick spreadable paste and spread on the board to make snow, then decorate with lolly pops ( fastened to sweets), sweets, chocolate buttons and gingerbread trees. Place the gingerbread on the roof or outside the door.