Stella Pereira shares her recipe for chocolate and steam gingerbread houses
Ingredients
• 180g plain flour, sieved
• 60g cocoa
• 80g brown sugar
• 60g butter, softened
• 1 egg
• 10g stem ginger, freshly grated
• ½tsp cinnamon
• ½tsp baking powder
• royal icing to decorate
Step by step:
1. Mix flour, cinnamon and baking powder in a bowl. Set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Add egg and ginger, continue to mix gently. Add cocoa, a spoon at a time. When well incorporated add flour mixture.
3. Remove dough from mixer, cover with parchment paper and refrigerate for 30 minutes. To roll thinly, sandwich dough between two pieces of parchment paper. Roll as thinly as possible, cut using cookie cutters or a sharp knife for houses.
4. Bake in a preheated oven at 160°C fan (180°C conventional, gas mark 4) for eight to ten minutes. Allow to cool on a rack, decorate with royal icing.
Words and images by Stella Pereira
Stella Pereira is a cook, cake designer and artist, originally from Portugal and now living in Cambridge.
Visit her website at www.littlecakepot.com