Gingerbreadhouse-House with Windows

I think the Gingerbreadhouse-House is a great present for people who are in the process of building a house - that is, a gingerbread house that looks like the house that is always on the builder's mind! Obviously that can be very complex depending on the house in question, the one that I baked was rather easy. That the plans were printed out for me in scale obviously helped a lot!

Ingedients for a house in scale 1:50
2 times the recipe gingerbread dough und 1 Royal Icing (here)

200 g white candy
flower for rolling dough 

Tools:

a lot of baking sheets
long, sharp knife
piping bag

to scale construction plans3. and 4. hand

Preparation:

Use the construction plans or measurements to make a list of all necessary parts. Fold the baking sheets to line 3-4 racks.

Roll out the dough in portions on a silicone dough mat, about 6 mm thick. Lay the construction plans on top and use the knife to mark the edges of windows and doors though the paper. Remove the paper and cut the shapes of windows and doors, but leave the dough cutouts in place for now. Cover the gingerbread with baking sheets, roll the dough mat onto a baking sheet and then reverse the process with one of the folded baking sheets which fit on the baking racks. You have to flip-roll the dough twice to avoid it being bakend mirror-inverted!

Pull the baking sheet onto the baking rack. I use the rolling process instead of lifting the gingerbread to avoid having it deform, which would result in a very witchy (and very difficult to assemble) house! That's also the reason for removing the cut-out windows and doors, again using the knife, only once the gingerbread rests on the baking rack.

Fill in the holes for the windows and doors with whole and crushed candy.

Once you have 3 racks of gingerbread ready, you can start baking. I used 165 °C with convection and baked the gingerbread for about 18 min. I also baked a little wheel loader for the outdoor installations...
The candy gets frothy in the oven, but clears again while cooling. 

Slide the baking sheets with the gingerbreads from the rack. The gingerbread is still soft and can be adjusted with a long knife, if necessary.

Once all the parts are baked and have cooled, we can start to assemble the house. Make the Royal Icing rather stiff for fast drying and quick house building! I used a little stack of cookies to build the pyramid shaped roof, a normal saddle roof can be assembled edge to edge (check out my first gingerbread house below).

A third and fourth hand are very "handy" for the assembly process.  However, the Royal Icing dries reasonably fast and holds pretty steady - make sure not to forget any edges!

And this is the finished house:

We wrapped it in plastic foil for the transport and off we went!

And this is my very first gingerbread house, which wasn't modeled after any real house - except for the double garage which noch house should lack! ;-)