Daring bakers - December 2009 - Gingerbread house

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

I've always admired gingerbread houses and even before this challenge was anounced I had contemplated baking one this year. However whether I actually would have found time to if it wasn't for the daring bakers I'm not so sure. I had great fun building my house, even if it was time consuming. When the challenge was announced I was very excited about it and eager to get started but since I wanted to be able to eat the house at christmas I waited until the 23rd to put the house together and decorate it, having pre-made and frozen the gingerbread pieces. I used the recipe given by Y of Lemonpi which came from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice A. Ojakangas. I used this template from Rachel Allen.

I kept it a secret from our families just in case mine turned out a complete distaster but I was very pleased with the result and I think everyone els liked it too. It even survived the journey an hour up the motorway to my boyfriends parents for christmas. We used it as a centre piece for the table on christmas day...and then it was demolished and we enjoyed eating it!