Gingerbread house, brick by brick

Building a gingerbread house using “bricks” instead of “slabs”, inspired by traditional stone structures. Try this unique weekend baking project if you are a fan of building with lego.

This project is somewhat spawned by life-size gingerbread houses. I remember visiting a life-size gingerbread house as a child and being very impressed. How many gingerbread bricks did it take to build such a house! A monumental amount!

Googling it today, it turns out that the displays are actually built from regular construction materials like plywood, and gingerbread slabs are only plastered on afterwards like decorative tiles. Disappointment.

This is quite understandable given the realities of the world and concerns like cost and safety. Someone would surely sue the hotel if their giant gingerbread house was structurally unsound. Nevertheless, a small part of me (that dark part which houses childlike wonder, often pushed aside in favor of blasé neutrality) felt a bit betrayed. Surely building a house out of gingerbread bricks can be done, so why hasn’t anyone done it? Instead of making a typical “slab-based” gingerbread house, I thought it might be “fun” to build a gingerbread house using bricks instead (miniature, not life-size!) [Was it fun? If you enjoy leisure activities that requires patience, you might enjoy building a gingerbread house brick by brick.]

Stonemasons used to build walls and house with nothing more than bricks or stones and mortar. There is even the dry-stone technique, which eliminates the mortar altogether. Dry stone constructed walls, huts, and temples used nothing more than natural stone, carefully selected and stacked to form impressive structures.

Gingerbread bricks for eating: texture and structural integrity

From the outset, I was adamant that the gingerbread bricks (and thus, house) should be made to be eaten. Imagine finding out that people build gingerbread houses to not eat (shocking!)

Unfortunately, it turns out that bricks are the most suboptimal shape to eat. There’s a reason that people say something is like “eating a brick”. The brick shape made the gingerbread cookies a bit like hard tack. The same recipe which yielded decently crispy thin cookies were noticeably harder and crunchier when baked in the miniature brick shape.

However, if the texture of the gingerbread was lightened using leaveners and aeration, the bricks became more puffy and less uniform in shape. This made them harder to stack and build a house with. Nevertheless, this is not a major problem if the dough is divided and shaped precisely, and sufficient royal icing is used to fill in the cracks. Additionally, if following traditional house building techniques like dry stone construction, each brick is slightly different and needs to be fitted with thought, so slightly puffy gingerbread bricks are arguably all the more realistic for building a gingerbread stone cottage.

I tested multiple recipe variations for the gingerbread bricks, using varying levels of butter, egg, and baking powder. I also compared gingerbread made using melted butter versus softened and creamed butter.

• The easiest of the bunch, based on Mézeskalács from the Best of Hungary website uses melted butter and no egg. I made some modifications and replaced the honey with molasses. This is a decent basic recipe. The gingerbread cookies baked well, but for bricks, turned out a bit too hard for eating, especially once they were set aside for a couple of days.
• Melted butter, no leavener and no egg made a gingerbread that baked evenly, was crunchy like toffee, but extremely hard to bite. Untenable for bricks if you plan on eating, but really sturdy for building, like little rocks.
• Gingerbread made with melted butter and egg was slightly better. The bricks were good to eat fresh, but like the mezeskalacs, stales after leaving for days in ambient room temperature into something I find slightly too hard.
• Gingerbread made with softened/creamed butter and egg made the best bricks for eating. The addition of egg and the creaming of the butter created a texture that was the airiest and crispest of the bunch. However, these bricks puff up more than other formulas.

Tips for handling the dough and making the gingerbread bricks

• Use parchment paper or silicon baking mats for rolling out and cutting the dough.
• Lightly flour as you roll.
• Keep the dough as rectangular as possible while you roll.
• A dough scraper is the best tool for cutting without distorting the dough.
• Measuring with a ruler is a must!
• It is a good idea to make some smaller bricks in addition to the regular bricks. These will come in handy for filling in gaps when building the house.

How many bricks do you need?

It is best to calculate the size you want your house and roughly how many bricks you will need to bake before commencing.

My original blueprint planned for a 19 cm by 13 cm structure comprising of a rectangular base made out of 9 bricks lengthwise and 6 bricks widthwise, with 7 layers of bricks in height for all the sides, and 5 more layers on the two longer sides to make the triangular gable roof. This floor plan called for 242 two by one rectangular bricks, 8 one by one square bricks, 16 two by one right angle triangular bricks, and 2 isosceles triangle bricks.

However, I ended up downsizing the house into one with a square base using 4 bricks on each side, 5 layers, and 3 more layers for the gable roof. This used roughly 92 two by one cm bricks. As well, I used some square bricks to fill in gaps as the bricks were not uniform once baked. After some experimentation, I found the triangular bricks to distort too easily, which would make attaching the roof difficult. Instead of using triangular bricks for the gable, I used bread sticks as “rafters” to support the gingerbread “decking”.

In addition to the standard gingerbread bricks, it is also a good idea to make extra bricks of various sizes, a solution for the roof (whether it be rafters and decking or full roof slabs), and other decorative bric-a-bracs like gingerbread people, doors, trees etc.

The recipe below as written is enough to make approximately 100-120 (1x1x2cm sized) bricks.

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Recipe Card

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Gingerbread bricks (for house building)

A light, crispy gingerbread cookie recipe for making "bricks", to build a gingerbread house using “bricks” instead of “slabs”.

Prep Time30 minutes mins

Cook Time15 minutes mins

Rest time30 minutes mins

Course: Dessert, Snack

Cuisine: American, Canadian

Diet: Vegetarian

Keyword: Baking, Festive, Gingerbread

Servings: 100 bricks

Ingredients

• 200 g flour
• 100 g molasses
• 48 g butter softened
• 40 g white granulated sugar
• 5 g baking powder
• 5 g gingerbread spice see note 1
• 25 g egg beaten (half a large egg)

Instructions

• Cream the softened butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the molasses and egg and continue creaming, scraping down the sides of the bowl so that everything is well incorporated.
• Whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, gingerbread spice).
• Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix until evenly combined. The dough can be used right away. However, refrigerating it for at least 30 minutes may make it easier to handle.
• To make the bricks, lightly flour the dough on a silicon baking mat or piece of parchment paper. Pat the dough into a square or rectangle. Roll out into a slab 1 cm thick rectangle (lightly flouring as needed).
• Using a ruler and a dough scraper, mark out where you will be dividing the dough. Cut the dough into 1×2 cm rectangles (see note 2). The easiest way to do this is to cut the dough into 1 cm wide strips, then divide the strips at 2 cm intervals.
• Gently transfer each brick to a baking tray line with parchment or a baking mat, taking care not to distort the bricks when handling. The bricks must not touch each other. There should be at least 1 cm clearance between each brick as they will expand in the oven.
• Depending on your gingerbread brick house design, you may also wish to make some 1x1x1 cm square bricks or some triangular or angled bricks for the roof. The excess dough can be gathered, kneaded, and formed into “rafters” (long strips) and “decking” (thin rectangular slabs) for the roof. Alternatively, you can keep it simple and make slabs for the roof.
• Bake the bricks in a preheated oven at 360 F for 10-15 minutes. The bricks should have expanded slightly, and the bottom side of the bricks should take on some color. The bricks will be soft coming out of the oven but will harden as they cool.
• Let cool to room temperature. The gingerbread bricks are now ready to be used along with your favorite royal icing to build a gingerbread brick house. If you will not be building immediately, transfer the bricks to an airtight container until ready to use.

Notes

Note 1: To make your own gingerbread spice blend, mix together ground ginger, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon. The following is my recipe blend which will make more than enough for this recipe: 7 g ginger, 3 g nutmeg, 3 g cloves, 4 g cinnamon.

Note 2: The recipe as written is scaled to make approximately 100-120 (1x1x2cm) bricks, plus some roofing.