We struck gold last week … HARIBO asked if we’d like to receive a box full of sweets and some dough cutters for a gingerbread house, to help get us into the festive spirit. It didn’t take too much thought before we shouted “YES PLEASE” back at them! Unknown to them, making a gingerbread house was actually on our agenda this weekend anyway … perfect timing …
When the postman delivered the goodies, the box contained:
- HARIBO Pip Polar Bear Gift Box
- HARIBO Puck Penguin Gift Box
- HARIBO Starmixmas
- HARIBO Giant Trees
- HARIBO Hamper (lots more sweets in here!)
- A gingerbread house cutter kit
And it was all contained within a bespoke fun HARIBO box.
On the back of the cutter kit were instructions on how to make the gingerbread house, and the Royal icing to ‘glue’ it all together – it looked quite straightforward. By the way, if you’d like TO WIN the same as listed above, scroll down and enter our competition …
Making the Gingerbread
Making the gingerbread was easy; in fact 11 year old Toby did it without help. You weigh out butter, dark sugar and golden syrup and heat it through, then take it off the heat to add the dry ingredients (flour, bicarb of soda, ground ginger). Then mix until it forms a dough.
Roll it out on top of a piece of greaseproof paper, until it is around 5mm thick. Then cut out the panels for the house and chimney … using left-over dough for shapes, like a Santa sleigh, reindeer and Christmas tree.
Try to keep the cut-out dough on the sheet of paper … do not attempt to lift them onto a different cooking sheet as they will stretch out of shape. Cut the greaseproof paper instead. Cook for around 20 minutes, then set aside to cool.
Making HARIBO bears ‘stained glass windows’
We cut out some windows before we baked the house panels. From a bag of HARIBO Bear Buddies, we separated them into same-colour piles.
Then we took a handful of one colour, put them in a cup, added a very small amount of water, and microwaved them for 30 seconds. The bears melt into a liquid that you can carefully pour into the window shapes. Put the tray of panels into the fridge overnight to set. Peel them carefully from the greaseproof paper, ready to assemble.
Assembling the Gingerbread House
First you need to make the Royal icing ‘glue’. You simply need icing sugar, a small amount of Cream of Tartar, and 2 x egg whites. Whisk together until stiff peaks form; then transfer to a piping bag.
Glue the panels together with the icing – it is easier with some help, so you can hold each end while it sets. Then add the chimney. The best thing you can do now is walk away for a bit – give it time to properly set. Once it has set, use more Royal icing to glue decorations on and around the house.
HARIBO decorations
The children were not hugely creative when it came to decorating! But we managed some Chamallow chimney smoke, Jelly Bean and Balla Stix roof decorations, with some Friendship Ring window decorations. Outside is a forest of HARIBO Giant Trees, with a Balla Stix path.
Ultimately, the children wanted to use as few HARIBO as they could … so they could eat the rest!
And here’s the finished masterpiece … drum roll please …
! COMPETITION !
We are running a really short giveaway, where one lucky winner will receive the same hamper of HARIBO goodies that we were sent. Oh, and the gingerbread cutters too! The giveaway closes at MIDNIGHT on THURSDAY 19 DECEMBER. Entering is easy, using the form below. GOOD LUCK!
Disclaimer
We were sent a HARIBO hamper of sweets to use as decoration for a festive gingerbread house.
This looks amazing! What a fab idea to use sweeties too! I had a disaster trying to build a gingerbread hoise a few years ago and had never attempted once since then!!
Oh my word if I was a kid this would be a dream come true! Can’t believe how great you made it look!
I love this. My houses always turn out terrible. Might need to give these ideas a go.
Ah this is so clever and festive. Would have never thought of using ~Haribo! bet it was even better to eat as well 🙂
Can you be my Mum please?
This looks so good, the windows are genius!
Ours always end up with us scoffing sweets and broken gingerbread!
Wow, that’s a lot of sweets. I’ve never made gingerbread from scratch before. I didn’t realise it was so easy to make.
Great job! This looks fab, gingerbread houses are tricky to put together even with a pre-made kit. It really does look great!
What a lovely Christmas activity! I have to admit I have never made a gingerbread house but this kit makes it look a lot easier than I imagined!
This looks fantastic and what a fun activity to do too!
Oh wow! I’m so impressed that you made the gingerbread yourself (well.. your little one did 😉). It’s super cute and I had no idea you could melt down the sweeties to make the windows.
Wow that ginger bread house looks incredible! Well done. I will definitely be trying this! Looks so much fun
It looks amazing! I love your idea with the trees. In Germany, we always used Haribo to decorate our gingerbread houses, it’s great there is more variety of Haribo here now too.
I am hopeless at making gingerbread houses but this looks awesome
That looks absolutely amazing and impressive and you guys did a fab job. The only thing about making these is not wanting to break them to eat them, I always feel bad about that.