Initially I was surprised to discover Ikea sold gingerbread house kits coming up to Christmas but when you think about it Ikea is the perfect place to sell a flat pack gingerbread house…
Aidan and I spent two happy evenings assembling the house. Here is the pack unwrapped
We started by mixing up 300g icing sugar and covering a base board, using a palette knife to spread the icing.
We then used a number 12 dot icing nozzle and stiff icing to ice the major joins.
We left the house like this for an hour to set before putting the roof on.
At this point we left the house overnight to set. Next evening we decorated
We mixed another 200g icing sugar and spread it over the roof and chimney. We used match makers to get the diagonal roof stripes and used smarties, wine gums and liquorice allsorts to do decorate.
I made the snowman from 2 large marshmallows one on top of the other with a cocktail stick pushed through. I then used a large chocolate button topped by a mini marshmallow and chopped off the excess cocktail stick. I used 2 chocolate drops for the eyes and a strawberry lace for the scarf.
We used stiff icing throughout and added the warm water a teaspoon at at time to make sure we didn’t add too much at once.
Using a kit is a great way to build confidence before baking your own gingerbread. Aidan (age 13) did most of the mixing of icing, assembling and decorating with me on hand to help out.
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