Ingredients
Gingerbread:
- 840g flour, self-raising, sifted
- 240g cake wheat flour, sifted
- 30g ginger, ground
- 20g cinnamon, ground
- 240g sugar, demerara
- 370g butter, chopped
- 120g icing sugar
- 4 eggs
- 250ml golden syrup
- 60ml hazelnut syrup
Sugar glue:
- 250g sugar
Royal icing:
- 4 egg whites
- 720g icing sugar
- 10g cream of tartar
- 5ml mandarin juice
- 1ml food colouring, turquoise
- 1ml food colouring, orange
- 1ml food colouring, navy blue
- 1ml food colouring, red
- 1ml food colouring, yellow
- 1ml food colouring, green
Long walls:
- 2 x 500g gingerbread dough
Square roof:
- 250g gingerbread dough
Short walls:
- 264g gingerbread dough
Hexagon roof:
- 250g gingerbread dough
Pillars:
- 125g gingerbread dough
Round wall:
- 125g gingerbread dough
Dome:
- 114g gingerbread dough
Arabic lettering:
- 125g gingerbread dough
Floor base:
- 125g gingerbread dough
Cobblestone:
- 125g gingerbread dough
Assembly:
- 250g sugar glue
- 4 long walls
- 1 square roof
- 6 short walls
- 2 hexagon roof
- 1 round wall
- 1 dome
- 4 pillars
- 2 Arabic lettering
- royal icing, navy blue
- royal icing, green
- royal icing, turquoise
- royal icing, yellow
- royal icing, orange
- royal icing, red
- 20 dragées, large, gold
- 20 dragées, large, turquoise
Preparation method
Gingerbread:
- Pre-heat oven to 180 C
- Sift flour, ginger, cinnamon and sugar
- Add butter to flour and incorporate until it reaches breadcrumb texture
- Whisk golden syrup, hazelnut syrup and eggs
- Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients
- Knead dough until smooth and glossy
- Divide dough into 500g pieces
- Allow to chill for 30 minutes
Sugar glue:
- Melt sugar until amber in colour, stirring with a wooden spoon
- Dip the edges of the gingerbread into the melted sugar and join to form the structure
Royal icing:
- Beat egg whites until light foam appears
- Sift icing sugar and cream of tartar
- Gradually add icing sugar, cream of tartar and mandarin juice to egg whites
- Divide icing into 6 equal parts
- Add one colour per icing, which gives you 6 royal icings
- Transfer icing to 6 piping bags, each filled with a different colour
- Set aside until ready to use
Long walls:
- Pre-heat oven to 180 C
- Divide gingerbread dough into 4 x 250g rolls
- Use 1 x 250g gingerbread dough and roll out to 1cm thickness
- Use template one to cut out 1 rectangle, 12cmx6cm
- Chill the gingerbread rectangle for 10 minutes
- Repeat the above three steps with the remaining 3 pieces (250g each)
- In total, you need to have 4 rectangle walls
- Bake for 20 minutes, until golden in colour and firm to touch
- Allow to cool completely
Square roof:
- Roll out 250g of gingerbread dough, 1cm thick
- Use template 2 to cut out a 12cmx12cm square
- Chill the gingerbread square for 10 minutes
- Bake at 180 C for 15 minutes
- Allow to cool completely
Short walls:
- Divide 396g into 6 equal pieces, 66g each
- Roll out each of the 6 pieces of gingerbread dough to 1cm thickness
- Use template 3 to cut out 6 rectangles, 8cmx6cm
- Chill rectangular walls for 10 minutes
- Bake at 180 C for 15 minutes
Hexagon roof:
- Roll out 250g of gingerbread dough, 1cm thick
- Cut out 2 x 1cm thick hexagons, using template 3
- Chill the gingerbread hexagons for 10 minutes
- Bake at 180 C for 15 minutes
- Allow to cool completely
Pillars:
- Roll out 125g of gingerbread dough, 1cm thick
- Using template 4, cut out 4 rectangles, 10cmx2cm
- Place gingerbread rectangles on well-greased baking pillars
- Chill the gingerbread pillars for 10 minutes
- Bake at 180 C for 10 minutes
- Allow to cool completely
Round wall:
- Roll out 125g of gingerbread dough, 1 cm thick
- Using template 4, cut out 1 rectangle, 12cmx2cm
- Place gingerbread rectangle around the base of a greased 5cm mini dome-shaped cake tin
- Chill the gingerbread rectangle for 10 minutes
- Bake at 180 C for 15 minutes
- Allow to cool completely
Dome:
- Roll out 114g of gingerbread dough, 1 cm thick
- Using template 4, cut out a 9cm circle
- Wrap the gingerbread circle over a well greased 5cm mini dome-shaped cake tin
- Chill the gingerbread dome for 15 minutes
- Bake at 180 C for 15 minutes
- Allow to cool completely
Arabic lettering:
- Roll out 125g of gingerbread dough, 5mm thick
- Trace around the template with a knife
- Chill each of the 2 Arabic pieces
- Bake both pieces for 15 minutes
Floor base:
- Roll out dough 20cmx20cm
- Chill
- Bake
Cobblestone:
- Roll out dough into a medium square
- Press dough into cobblestone dough
- Cut strips 2cmx6cm
- Bake at 180 C
- Allow to cool, then paint with gold lustre dust
Assembly:
- Begin by using the turquoise royal icing to outline each of the long rectangle walls
- Pipe a 2cm turquoise border on each of the 4 long walls
- Fill the centre of 2 of the long rectangle walls with yellow royal icing
- Fill the centre of 2 of the long rectangle walls with orange royal icing
- Cover the square roof with orange royal icing
- Allow each of the gingerbread walls and roof to dry completely
- Pipe a 2cm red border on each of the 6 short walls
- Fill the centre of each of the 6 short walls with turquoise royal icing
- Cover the Arabic lettering with turquoise royal icing
- Cover both of the hexagon roofs with navy blue royal icing
- Allow each of the gingerbread walls and roof to dry completely
- Cover the round wall with yellow royal icing
- Use the orange royal icing to secure the Arabic lettering onto 2 of the long walls
- Once all the gingerbread walls and roofs have dried completely, begin to assemble
- Dip the edges of each long wall into the sugar glue and position on the cake board
- Place the sugar glue onto the top edges of the long walls and place the square roof
- Use the wooden spoon to place the sugar glue in the centre of the square roof
- Place the hexagon roof onto the square roof
- Glue the short walls edges and position on each 6cm side of the hexagon roof
- Glue the top of the short walls and place the hexagon roof onto the top
- Dip the round wall into the sugar glue and attach to the hexagon roof
- Dip the dome into the sugar glue and attach to the circle wall
- Glue edges of the 4 pillars and attach to one of the long walls
- Use the yellow royal icing to secure one or 2 sugar veil flowers
- Pipe finer details onto walls and the dome
- Place the metallic turquoise and gold dragée to the dome and on all 4 pillars