Will self raising flour fuck up my gingerbread house?

[AintNobodyHereButUsChickens]

I'm making a G.bread house today and annoyingly I'm a few hundred grams short of plain flour can I use SR or will it rise too much and distort the house windows and door?

If you're only using a little bit, it shouldn't make too much difference. Good luck !

Hmm, how much SR is that as a rough percentage?

A few hundred grams isn’t ‘a little bit’. Give it a go, and I’d definitely trim the gingerbread to your required size as soon as it comes out of the oven while it’s still soft.

Well, I need 900g and I only have 500g 😬 so nearly half the amount I need!

Don't do it! I made gingerbread men using SR flour by accident once. They were morbidly obese when I took them out the oven. Definitely not recommended for precise building materials!

A tip I learnt recently was to cut out the shape with your template/cutter and then leave a border of gingerbread around it while it bakes. Once it’s baked halfway, you can remove the border and it helps the shapes keep their dimensions and not spread so much thanks Ann reardon

Yes it will ruin it...sorry!

If you've already done it, take the tray out halfway through and bang it off the bench. That'll remove some of the air. Probably won't be quite right but still...

I'd probably make a miniature gingerbread house instead though if you haven't started.

A tip I've seen on bake off is to use the cutter to cut the dough before baking, then use it again as soon as it comes out of the oven to tidy up any bits where it has spread or misshapen during baking. I would reduce the amount of bicarbonate in the recipe if you are using SR flour.

Please post a pic fucked up or not and thanks for the title, made me smile.

I decided not to risk it in the end and went to the shop for flour. I put a lot of work into my gingerbread houses and I couldn't bear the thought of buggering it up with the wrong flour! The last few bits are in the oven now.

Just so you're aware, Mary Berry's gingerbread house recipe is a load of shite. The dough is ridiculously greasy and crumbly, it was bloody awful to roll out, I kept having to squidge it back together

Doesn’t look like shite to me! Can you do another pic when it’s assembled - love to see it!

Definitely doesn't look like shite to me, but ikwym about the texture.

I'm gingerbreading today and used the BBC Good Food recipe which looked like this...

Everything seems to have come out in one piece though and it's all being iced so hopefully won't have any disasters.

Gingerbread recipes usually include baking powder so if using self raising flour, you can leave out the baking powder or put half in if the flour is half and half.

@MintyCedric was it this recipe that you used? www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mary_berrys_gingerbread_91126 It cooked just fine and tastes good, but the dough is awful when it's raw!

No, I used this one...

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/simple-gingerbread-house

Haven't tried any yet but they came out OK and stood up to icing

@AfterEightMintyCedric

No, I used this one...

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/simple-gingerbread-house

Haven't tried any yet but they came out OK and stood up to icing

They look amazing!

Thank you .

I have a weird thing about tomtes this year for some reason.

@AfterEightMintyCedric Those are incredible!! Any tips on how to ice biscuits like that? What icing do you use?

@spotsbeforetheeyes

It's the first time I've done biscuits tbh, although I've done cakes for years.

I just used the royal icing sugar that you make up with water, and colourings are paste rather than liquid.

I try and plan my colouring so I can recycle the icing and not waste too much eg I piped the white first, squeezed out the leftovers and added a drop of black to make the grey, then squeezed out again and added green.

Having lots of icing bags and couplers as well as a good selection of nozzles helps if you're using a lot of colours. I used disposable bags as it's cheap to have lots on the go and you can rinse them all out afterwards and reuse.

There is loads of good content out there for ideas and techniques especially on TikTok.

I also follow SweetAmbs and Marlyn of Montreal on FB.

Done

Ooh that's so cute!

Did you use melted sweets for the windows? I've never got round to trying that (and the last gingerbread house I made ended up a gingerbread earthquake).

@AfterEightMintyCedric

Ooh that's so cute!

Did you use melted sweets for the windows? I've never got round to trying that (and the last gingerbread house I made ended up a gingerbread earthquake).

Yes I did, I baked the house pieces and then crushed up boiled sweets (ended up having to use my blender ) filled the windows and then melted them in the oven for a few minutes, I'd never done it before so I'm still amazed it worked!

I always use self raising flour!

This is my gingerbread house recipe

125g butter
400g self raising flour
125g light brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
(Optional quarter teaspoon ground pepper- depends how spicy you like it!)
125g black treacle
1 large egg

Foolproof. Deliciously soft yet robust.