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3 A Icings and Tips for Gingerbread House

Source of Recipe

www.gingerbreadlane.com
Egg White Icing

3 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 (16 oz box) confectioners powdered sugar

In a large bowl combine all ingredients. Beat 7 minutes with an electric mixer until smooth and thick.. A good test is when a knife blade drawn through the icing leave a clean cut. Store in a tightly sealed container if you are not using it right away.





Second Method




MERINGUE POWDER ROYAL ICING

3 Tablespoons Meringue Powder (available where cake decorating supplies are sold)
1 1 LB box (3 3/4 cups) confectioner’s sugar
4-6 Tablespoons cold water

Put dry ingredients together, add half the water, then add more water as needed. The consistency of the icing should be thick, where a knife can be drawn through it leaving a clean path...but not so thick it won’t go through an icing tip. Takes about 2-3 minutes with this method.



ICING TIPS





You will need a basic knowledge of decorating with icing tips and bags to make gingerbread structures.

If you have never done this before, practice first. Go to a cake decorating store and buy a Wilton book. It will show you techniques and give you lots of ideas.

Buy some disposable plastic pastry bags, and some tips.

You can use tips you like some of the ones I use over and over are:

Round tip 1
Round tip 2
Round tip 3

You will also need what are called “couplers” . Buy several, you will want to have one for each color of icing you plan to use...buy at least 5.

These are two piece sets, half goes inside the pastry bag, the other piece holds the tip on the pastry bag. If you are not familiar with this ask at the cake decorating store...it’s really easy, but like anything else, if you have not done it before, it’s a little hard to explain.







Mixing icing is a double edged sword. It’s much easier to mix it all ahead, but you need to use it in a timely fashion or it hardens. I usually mix it up, and try to fold the pastry bags over to keep the top from drying out. If I need to keep icing overnight I put it in a Tupperware container right in the bags. They sell “covers” for the tips to be used for storage, but in my opinion they don’t make that much difference. You are going to have to unclog the tips anyway if you leave them sit for any period of time.

Keep toothpicks handy for cleaning out tips, and a paint brush works well too for getting into the points of the tips.

Toothpicks work well for helping correct errors, keep some handy. Coloring icing :

Color small batches of this icing as needed with Wilton decorating pastes, which are much more intense and not watery like liquid food colors.

Using the pastry bags: This is a simple matter of practice. Practice on wax paper before you try and decorate on the house.

You might also want to decorate the house pieces flat before putting them together. It can be much easier to do intricate decorations flat rather than trying to work vertically.