Gingerbread Dough

• 1. Start by adding butter, syrup, and brown sugar to a pot. I use dark syrup, which has a stronger flavor and is therefore really good for Christmas cookies, but you can definitely use light syrup. It’s just a matter of taste.
  2. Place the pot on the stove over low heat and let it melt slowly.
  3. Remove the pot from the heat and add pepper, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, and baking soda.
  4. Mix it together and let it cool down a bit.
  5. Put the dough in the refrigerator for at least a couple of hours.
  6. Pour the dough out onto a floured surface and roll it out to about three millimeters thick.
  7. Cut the dough into the desired parts. I cut 2 parts for the house's facade, 2 parts for the gables, 2 parts for the roof, and 4 parts for the chimney. You can, for example, use the pieces from the windows for the chimney. Remember that two of the parts for the chimney need to be trimmed to fit on the roof ridge. Before you start cutting out the pieces, you can draw the pieces on a piece of parchment paper and place it over the dough. Then it’s easy to cut out the dough. You can also buy cutters for gingerbread houses.
  8. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (356 degrees Fahrenheit).
  9. Place all the cake pieces on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and put the sheet in the preheated oven.
  10. Bake the pieces for 10 minutes.
  11. Take them out of the oven and let them cool completely.
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• 1. Combine powdered sugar and egg white in a bowl and whisk until it becomes firm.
  2. Make a piping bag out of parchment paper and seal it with a couple of pieces of tape.
  3. Cut a small hole at the end of the piping bag by snipping off the tip. Better to cut it too small than too big so you can make a "tester" of the icing before you pipe directly onto the cake pieces.
  4. Pour the icing into the piping bag and start decorating the completely cooled cake pieces. You can decorate them as you wish, or you can be inspired by my gingerbread house.
  5. Decorate the icing with the sugar decorations.
  6. Let the icing harden. It takes at least a couple of hours, and the icing should be completely hard before you assemble the gingerbread house.
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• 1. Pour the sugar into a pan and let it melt.
  2. Keep the pan on the stove over low heat so it doesn't harden again.
  3. Dip the edges of the cake pieces in the caramel and glue the pieces together. Make sure to hold the pieces together until the caramel has hardened.