This Shetland Croft-style gingerbread house is made using a (slightly adapted) Norwegian pepperkakehus recipe. It’s a delicious, sturdy, easy-to-work-with gingerbread recipe and includes the printable template.
This recipe was featured on BBC Radio Shetland’s Shetland Larder and in issue #190 of the i’i Shetland magazine.
Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
- A Shetland gingerbread crofthouse – the inspiration
- Ingredients you’ll need for this Shetland gingerbread crofthouse
- How to make a gingerbread crofthouse – step by step
- Printable template
- Tips for assembling a gingerbread house
- Fair Isle Knitting Patterns – decorating inspiration
- Shetland Croft Gingerbread House with Fair Isle Pattern Decoration
- Pin this gingerbread house for later
- Other Christmas recipes you might like
A Shetland gingerbread crofthouse – the inspiration
This is, officially, the second gingerbread house I have ever made. The first one was exactly six years ago, which I photographed and published in a blog post entitled Shetland Pepperkakehus.
For this version, I was inspired by my neighbour’s Shetland Croft Planter from Greencroft Shetland. With its characteristic bright red door, I thought the design could be transferred into gingerbread architecture. I’m quite pleased with the results!
Jump to the full, printable recipe card
Ingredients you’ll need for this Shetland gingerbread crofthouse
- 600 grams of plain flour
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground cloves – I grind my own whole cloves for a better flavour
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 250 grams treacle, or if you want a milder flavour use equal parts treacle and golden syrup
- 125 grams Shetland butter
- 2 eggs (plus 2 egg whites for the icing) – my eggs came from Bressay
- 250 grams caster sugar
- 500 grams icing sugar (divided)
- red gel food colouring – optional, to colour the icing for the door
- sugar cubes – optional, to decorate
How to make a gingerbread crofthouse – step by step
- Mix together the flour, baking soda and spices. I use a whisk to gently but evenly distribute the spices.
- Melt the treacle and butter together in a small saucepan, and whisk the eggs and caster sugar together until light. Add both to the bowl of dry ingredients.
- Stir well with a wooden spoon until combined. The dough will seem too soft and wet, but it will work, don’t worry.
- Divide the mixture into three even pieces, roll in clingfilm and leave to chill overnight in the fridge.
- The next day, roll the dough out on a piece of non-stick baking paper. Cut out your gingerbread house template (see below) and bake for 12 minutes in a preheated oven. Make sure you transfer the pieces of baking paper with the cut-out gingerbread pieces on it to the baking tray instead of handling the dough itself once it’s cut. This will help the shapes keep their proper proportions. Cut the baking paper if the pieces are too close together, as they do spread a little during baking.
- Mix the icing sugar with egg white to make the icing. Pipe a decoration as desired, and assemble the house. Do this in stages, starting with the four walls and finishing with the roof and chimneys. Leave a good few hours of drying time in between each section of the assembly.
Jump to the full, printable recipe card.
Printable template
Tips for assembling a gingerbread house
- Be patient! Allow several hours drying time in between each section.
- Make sure your wire rack isn’t slightly curved, like mine, to keep your gingerbread components straight. Otherwise, you’ll end up with slightly curved walls like I did. Oops.
- The roof with my pattern doesn’t rest on the sides, as many houses do. You’ll have to compensate for this by piping a little icing on the inside side walls to rest the roof pieces on. I used a mini milk bottle to prop up one half of the roof before adding the second.
- Icing hides a multitude of errors. Be generous, if you need to. 😉
- Decorate each section with your favourite Fair Isle patterns, leaving the pieces to dry overnight before assembling. Use Google Images for inspiration (or your favourite knitting book).
- You’ll need two batches of icing if you cover your gingerbread house in designs, like I did.
- Crushed sugar cubes sprinkled over the top and base of the house look like fallen chunks of snow, I think.
- Re-roll any leftover pieces of gingerbread dough and let the kids cut out their own designs.
- This dough freezes well, I have discovered. I’d made this batch of dough at least a month ago, but then I never had time to bake/assemble the gingerbread house before I left for London for the awards ceremony, so I popped it in the freezer. Simply defrost on the countertop for a couple of hours.
Fair Isle Knitting Patterns – decorating inspiration
I have to confess I’m no expert in knitting or Fair Isle patterns. For my gingerbread house, I searched online for images featuring patterns within my limited piping skills, opting for a design I’d piped on my original Shetland Pepperkakehus back in 2012 and another tree motif I found by Outi Kater on her gorgeous Snow in Kergord mittens.
If you’re wanting to know more about Fair Isle knitting, let me introduce you to my neighbour (and world’s fastest knitter!), Fair Isle expert Hazel Tindall.
Hazel recently gifted me two of her gorgeous Twartree pieces to wear to the Vuelio Blog Awards Ceremony in London. I’m (slightly jokingly) attributing my win to wearing these works of art – I wore one as a corsage on my wrist, and the other clipped to my clutch purse on the night. She made them both to match my dress, and I’m sure you’ll agree, they’re beautiful! You can find the Twartree pattern here.
I had attempted to pipe her Twartree design onto the front door of my gingerbread house, like a festive wreath, but my lack of piping skills let me down. I opted for a solid red door outlined in white instead.
All in all, I’m quite pleased with this gingerbread crofthouse. Hopefully, it won’t be another six years before I make another!
I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
Recipe Difficulty Levels
Easy
Requires basic cooking skills and ingredients you most likely already have in your kitchen.
Moderate
Requires more experience, preparation and/or cooking time. You may have to source special ingredients.
Challenging
Recipes requiring more advanced skills and experience and maybe some special equipment.
Shetland Croft Gingerbread House with Fair Isle Pattern Decoration
Ingredients
for the gingerbread house dough
- 600 grams plain flour
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tsp ground cloves
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 0.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 2 medium free-range eggs
- 250 grams caster sugar
- 125 grams butter
- 250 grams black treacle
for the icing
- 225 grams icing sugar
- 1 free-range egg white
to decorate
- red gel food colouring optional
- sugar cubes optional
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Equipment
Instructions
- Combine 600 grams plain flour, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper, 1 tsp ground cloves, 1 tsp ground ginger and 0.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda in a large bowl.
- Melt 250 grams black treacle and 125 grams butter together and allow to cool slighty.
- Whisk 2 medium free-range eggs and 250 grams caster sugar together until light and fluffy.
- Add the treacle and egg mixtures to the dry ingredients and work well with a wooden spoon until combined into a soft dough.
- Pop the bowl of dough in the fridge for an hour or so to chill, and then divide into three even sized discs. Wrap in each disc in clingfilm and leave to chill in the fridge overnight.
- Roll out each disc of dough on a sheet of good quality non-stick baking paper using a lightly floured rolling pin.
- Cut out your gingerbread house pieces using the printable template included in this blog post, and remove the excess dough around each section.
- Transfer the baking paper with the cut-out pieces (leaving the gingerbread untouched) to a baking sheet and bake in the centre of a preheated 200 C/ 180 C fan/ 390 F oven for 12 minutes.Leave to cool for a few minutes on the tray before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- To make the icing, combine 225 grams icing sugar with 1 free-range egg white. Transfer to a piping bag and decorate each of the components of the gingerbread house as desired. You'll need two batches of icing if you're going to pipe designs all over it as I have. Colour your front door with red gel food colouring, in Shetland style, if desired.
- Leave overnight to harden before assembling, starting with the four walls and finishing with the roof and chimney. Leave several hours of drying time in between assembling the walls and each of the roof pieces. You might need to prop up half of the roof with something and leave it to dry before adding the second half.
- Finish off with the chimney, and sprinkle the roof join with some crushed up sugar cubes to resemble snow.
Nutrition
Pin this gingerbread house for later
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Wow, that gingerbread house is absolutely beautiful! I have never made one myself before.
I’m loving this Gingerbread recipe! I think your house is beautiful and love that you’ve gone with a non traditional recipe.
I have always wanted to make my own gingerbread house. It has been a tradition to have one though we just usually purchase one. Thank you so much for sharing the recipe. Will try making one soon.
Appreciate the tips too.
We love making a gingerbread house ever year. Pinned for next year!
Every year I have the kids make gingerbread houses with me, it’s sort of a tradition come holiday time… Love how yours turned out, thanks for the recipe ; )
THIS IS SOMETHING THAT I’m not able to make it by myself! I’m so lazy! Seems too much of time…
This looks like an awesome gingerbread house! I would love to make one of these sometime!
this is a beautiful gingerbread house! i never made one from scratch like this
I’d never be able to recreate this, but I sure want to try! It’s incredible!
This looks incredible! I’d never be able to recreate it, but I want to try!
wonderful article i really like it
I miss home made gingerbread houses. When my grandma passed away, the tradition of having a gingerbread house ended. I wish I could learn to make them for my kids to relive our family tradition.
What a beautiful gingerbread house! I can’t believe that you made it from scratch. I haven’t made a gingerbread house since I was a kid and I used one of the pre-made kits.
Wow thank you for the detailed recipe. looks so nice and festive! i’d love to make it and then eat it haha
Oh my goodness this is Seriously the cutest little ginger bread house ever! My kids would absolutely love this! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Sounds great! I am making gingerbread house and cookies for friends and family tomorrow
I’ve always wanted to bake a gingerbread house with the kids but never knew how to so this post is totally helpful as it has the recipes, instructions and even the templates
Your gingerbread house looks adorable. Thank you for sharing.
Oh my, this looks amazing, I have never attempted a gingerbread house before
I was looking for a gingerbread house cute enough to inspire me to get back into it after a long time and yours has done it! I’m not able to access the Drop Box folder so I’d love it if you could please send it to me? TIA
I can’t believe you made that from scratch! It is probably the most beautiful gingerbread house I’ve ever seen.
This is such an adorable gingerbread house! I love this recipe, it’s very festive, and of course right for the season too!
Very cute gingerbread house! Love your recipe and your reminder I need to do one for our kids too!
This looks absolutely amazing. I don’t know if I would be able to actually make it because gingerbread houses stress me out to build!
Can I live in this gingerbread house? No seriously it’s so pretty!
Wow! Talk about talent! This is absolutely beautiful! We tried to put together a store bought one and it was a disaster hahaha!
That is such a beautiful gingerbread house! I have to give this a try with my kids. I think we’ll have a lot of fun.
I don’t think I have the courage to muster a gingerbread house from scratch and I am in awe of your achievement! It’s beautiful.
This is so cute 🙂 I love gingerbread, but have never tried making a house. Great tutorial!
So much patience, but it turned out GORGEOUS! Love how you decorated chimneys, such a clever idea.
Amazing! This reminds me of Hansel and Gretel–this house looks so yum!
I will be making gingerbread houses for the first time with my 6 year old niece and nephew. Thank you for all of the details, hints and tips as well as a great recipe. I’m looking forward to posting pictures of their masterpieces
The piping work on this gingerbread house is amazing! I am going to try to make one this weekend!
This is my project for the weekend! I have never made a gingerbread house before, but I am super excited to give it a try 🙂
What a gorgeous gingerbread house! Love the ideas so creative and aesthetic!
How amazing! I love how you’ve recreated smoke coming out of the chimneys. I’ve never made a gingerbread house so this year I might finally try!
This is just amazing, I love the double chimneys and if mine turned out like this, I would be chuffed x
I think this might be the prettiest gingerbread house I’ve ever seen! Your instructions are really clear, but I know I’d never manage to get mine looking as good as yours does!
Oh wow your gingerbread house is absolutely stunning, this is more of a mansion than a house haha x
iYou have created a masterpiece here, I have never made a gingerbread house before but do love devouring them.
This looks amazing! I love making a ginger bread house! Think I’ll get the stencil and give it a go!