Building the best gingerbread house: A step-by-step guide from a gingerbread pro

It's an open-invitation to build your own gingerbread bungalow.

Every year during the Christmas season, Meat Street Pies offers Edmontonians the chance to build a better gingerbread house at the downtown City Market. 

Jonathan Avis, a co-owner of MSP, has been a professional baker for more than 40 years.

"You can buy a commercial one … which is technically edible," Avis said. "But it's hard as a rock and it's got no flavour. Or you can bake a gourmet cookie, and you can eat the house as much as the candy."

Avis' workshops at the market provide building materials, homemade royal icing, a plywood platform and an assortment of candies. The focus is on pro-decorating tips and bringing families and communities together to celebrate the season.

"There's nothing better to kick off the seasonal good feeling than to bring together a community, building a house, and showing off their creative flair," he said.

Avis and CBC Edmonton's Clare Bonnyman went through the gingerbread building process from scratch, to demonstrate just how simple it can be.

Homemade Gingerbread

• 1 cup            butter
• 1 cup (packed)     brown sugar
• ¼ cup            molasses
• ½ cup            Rogers Golden Syrup
• 4 ¼ cups        all-purpose flour
• 1 ¼ tsp         baking soda
• 5 tsp            ground ginger
• 2 tsp            Cinnamon

Melt together butter, brown sugar, molasses and golden syrup.

Mix together dry ingredients, sifting to avoid clumps, and then mix in the wet ingredients.

Stir until it starts to form a dough, then empty bowl onto a clean working surface, and knead until consistently mixed.

Roll out dough to an inch thick, and cut using gingerbread forms.

Place shapes onto a lined cookie sheet, and put in the oven for 16 minutes at 350 degrees.

Once shapes are done cooking, pull out of oven and while still warm, use the gingerbread forms to trim the cookies, to ensure the pieces didn't change shape in the oven.

Set aside to cool for 24 hours, until ready for building a gingerbread house.

How to make a gingerbread house

6 years ago

Duration 3:35

Edmonton AM's Clare Bonnyman learns how to make a gingerbread house with Meat Street Pies co-owner Jonathan Avis.

Homemade Royal Icing

• 3 ¾ cups         icing sugar
• 3 large            egg whites
• 1 tbsp             lemon juice
• 1 tbsp            water

Mix together wet ingredients until combined.

Slowly sift in icing sugar, mixing with a whisk to ensure consistency.

Once all the icing sugar has been mixed in, and your mix is even, the icing is ready to use! Pop into a piping bag to use right away, or pop into a sealed container to save for later.