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Vegan Gingerbread Houses (or cookies!)

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Servings 1 house

Ingredients
  

gingerbread

  • 1 flax egg (1 tbsp flax combined with 3 tbsp water)
  • 1/2 cup blackstrap molasses
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup Earth Balance vegetable shortening
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp ginger

sugar-glue for assembly

  • 2+ cups of white sugar

icing

  • vegan icing of your choice. We suggest Food Network’s Vegan Royal Icing Recipe or Virgin Ice brand Royal Eggless Icing Mix available at Bulk Barn in Canada

decorations

  • vegan pretzels
  • vegan candy of your choosing

Instructions
 

prepare gingerbread dough

  • In a small bowl combine flax and water, let sit to thicken for 2-3 minutes.
  • In a large bowl combine flax egg, molasses, sugar, shortening and baking soda. Beat well.
  • In another bowl stir together flour and spices. Add the flour mixture to to the wet ingredients and beat well. The dough will be very thick.
  • Chill dough in the fridge for several hours or overnight.
  • While the dough is chilling draw the gingerbread house pattern on white paper and cut to use as templates.

bake gingerbread house pieces

  • Take dough out of the fridge and let it warm up for a few minutes. When you are ready to make the pieces, form dough into a ball, warming it up with your hands.
  • Roll out the dough directly on a cookie sheet (no greasing required) using a marble rolling pin. Roll carefully starting from the middle and rolling outwards. The rolled dough should be smooth with no cracks and should be fairly thin (approx 1/8 of an inch thick or less).
  • Place cut pattern on top of dough and trace around the template with a knife.
  • Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes. Do not undercook the gingerbread. Depending on your oven it may take a bit of trial and error to find the exact right baking time. Once cooled the pieces should be sturdy with no soft areas in the middle.
  • As soon as you take out of the oven, place the pattern over the piece and again cut around with a knife. This ensures the pieces have straight edges and will fit together. You need to do this as soon as it is out of the oven before the gingerbread crisps up.
  • Let cool on tea towels overnight. Do not try to assemble right away or the pieces will not be dry enough and your house will not be sturdy.

assembly

  • Before you start assembly make sure you have a good base on which to build your house (we used a large cake base board from bulk barn, but you can also use a piece of wood covered in tinfoil)
  • Melt sugar in a large saucepan over medium heat (do not add anything other than sugar). Stir frequently (do not leave unattended) until the sugar forms a sticky liquid substance. You will need to work fast and very carefully when assembling the houses as the sugar glue will be extremely hot and dries very fast.
  • Starting with the sides of the houses, dip the edges of the pieces in the sugar glue and stick on to your base. You will need to hold in place for a few minutes until the sugar hardens. Take a look at the pictures in the blog post to see how to assemble.
  • Don’t worry about the sugar dripping, the house should look a bit rustic, plus you can cover it up with icing and candy after.

decoration

  • Prepare icing according to recipe or package directions.
  • Use an icing bag to pipe icing on to the house (use to outline windows and edges as well as to attach candies of your choosing).
  • Get creative!

Notes

helpful hints
make a double batch so you can also make some cookies for decoration and some extra contingency pieces (especially the roof) just in case
before you put the roof on use the sugar glue to attach 3 popsicle sticks to the inside of the roof to add stability.
Keyword christmas, dessert, nut-free, Vegan, winter