Christmas cocktails
Cunard gingerbread
Our special gift to you for Christmas 2021: a festive gingerbread recipe from the Cunard kitchen.
5 min
08 Dec 2021
Bring the taste of European Christmas markets into your own home with this festive recipe from the Cunard kitchen. Our Executive Chef, Nick Oldroyd, shares how to make the traditional gingerbread house, complete with snowy frosting and colourful confections to decorate.
Ingredients
Makes one gingerbread house (or several gingerbread shapes).
For the dough
- 250g butter
- 200g muscovado sugar
- 7 tbsp. golden syrup
- 600g plain flour (all-purpose flour)
- 2 tsp. bicarbonate of soda
- 4 tsp. ground ginger
For the Royal Icing
- 2 egg whites
- 500g icing sugar (confectioners’ / powdered sugar)
Method
- Place the butter, golden syrup and muscovado sugar into a pan and melt until incorporated.
- Sift the flour into a large bowl, then add the ginger and bicarbonate of soda.
- Add the melted butter, syrup and muscovado sugar into the flour mix and bring together to form a dough.
- Rest the dough for 40 minutes, then roll out to your desired thickness and cut into shapes (there are various gingerbread house templates online, or you can use the dough to make gingerbread people, Christmas trees, stars, or even Cunard Queens!)
- Place on a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake at 180 ◦c for about 12- 14 minutes (time will depend on biscuit thickness). Leave to cool before decorating.
Final touches
To assemble, pipe along the edges of the shapes before joining together. Leave the house to dry, using supports, for a few hours before adding the roof, and then again before adding the decorations. We suggest dolly mixtures, liquorice allsorts and flaked almonds, but the choice is yours!
Chef Nick's top tip: "Ensure your Royal Icing is stiff – a runny icing will make assembly difficult."
