My gingerbread house post yesterday failed to give an icing recipe to hold those houses together. Gingerbread houses aren’t the only thing that can be hard to hold together this time of year, and you need to know what works for you. I’ve found that a little bit of quiet time each week helps me hold it together, and most weeks I start my Monday morning alone in a coffee shop with a frothy coffee (St. Louis has a lot of great independent coffee shops and bakeries where you can still get coffee in a real mug and beautiful pastry made by hand) and some time to reflect and make decisions about how I want to spend my time that week. Often the thing that appears to be the most urgent at first glance is really not the most important thing upon reflection. The retail world may think shopping is urgent right now, but this week I decided to make gingerbread houses for the kids in my life. It’s an important tradition for us, and one that holds us together as a family from year to year. My daughter gave me the best gift of the season when she came home and decorated one for my kitchen, and I’ve loved creating the Little Flour gingerbread house kits so that other kids can share in the fun. When it comes to gingerbread houses, as my friend Emily pointed out yesterday, you really do need a good icing to hold it all together. Here is the recipe I have found does the job the best…
Royal Icing
Prep time
Total time
Royal icing is too hard for eating, but perfect for holding together gingerbread houses. This a a slight modification of the classic Williams Sonoma recipe.
Author: Little Flour
Serves: one house
Ingredients
- 6 egg whites at room temperature
- 9 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- ⅛ teaspoon peppermint or orange oil (peppermint is traditional but I prefer orange)
Instructions
- Place all ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer with the whisk attachment.
- Start on low speed to blend then move to high speed and beat about 6 minutes until there are glossy stiff peaks that hold their shape, and the icing has almost tripled in volume.
- Immediately put the icing into a gallon sized zip lock bag and seal.
- When you are ready to build the house, snip off a corner of the bag and proceed with construction.
- Icing can be made several hours ahead of time and kept at room temperature in the sealed bag. Leftover icing is useable (though not as glossy and pretty) for a day or two as long as it is kept sealed and airtight. If you are transporting houses, it's a good idea to save a bit of icing for repairs when they reach their destination!