House:
Use heavy duty stand mixer, dough is heavy.
In a medium bowl, combine Pamela's Gluten-Free Bread Mix with salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and ginger. Whisk together thoroughly. Do not use the yeast packet in this recipe.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream shortening with sugar. Add egg, mix to incorporate. Add molasses, mix to incorporate. Add dry ingredients, mix to incorporate. Add water. Continue mixing gently together until dough comes together. If needed, add an additional tablespoon of water. (Dough prepared with egg replacer may require more or less water.)
Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour before rolling out.
Use template (see below) to cut out house pieces. Roll dough out at 1/4-inch. Cut out one house piece at a time on parchment using template. Leave the cookie on parchment and pull away excess dough from around cookie. Trim excess paper around cookie to about 1-inch, then transfer cookie on parchment to baking sheet. Multiple pieces can fit on one baking sheet. Remove templates from cookies before baking.
Bake cookies twice to dry enough for building a house. Bake at 350° for 10 minutes. Then turn off oven leaving cookies inside with door shut. Leave them to cool completely in the heat of the oven (3 to 4 hours). When cool, remove cookies from oven, preheat oven again to 350°, then bake for an another 10 minutes. Turn off oven with cookies inside with door shut, leave until cool.
Construct the house using Pamela's Royal Icing (see recipe below). Decorate using candies stuck into the icing.
Pamela's Gingerbread House Template (You need Adobe Acrobat to read these, for a free download of
Adobe Acrobat Reader click here.)
Gingerbread House Front ; Back
Gingerbread House Roof
Gingerbread House Sides
Pamela's Royal Icing:
Mix ingredients together, add food coloring*. Spread or pipe on cooled cookies. Add decorative sprinkles or candies if desired. Powder food coloring will net brighter colors. Great for gingerbread houses! Terrific for using to stick candies* on cookies! For the truly creative, try adding food color* for colored icing.
*Consumers concerned about gluten should check that all flavorings and additional ingredients added to recipes are gluten-free.
Make a gingerbread house for all of your favorite holidays, try your hand at this spooky haunted Halloween House or a romantic Valentine's Day Cottage.