You’re probably not surprised to hear I’m a big fan of a gingerbread house. My tree is covered with gingerbread decorations, I have some gingerbread scented candles burning and we’re all quite partial to making the odd gingerbread house during the festive season. Over the years I’ve tried a few gingerbread house kits but nothing beats making your own from scratch.

My 2014 gingerbread house

This year we made something a little different, a really large gingerbread house shaped biscuit, based on the felt busy bag gingerbread house my children love playing with.

This was so easy to put together and we had a great time decorating it. First I made my gingerbread dough using my never-fail gingerbread recipe. OXO sent me some products to help me, including a compact food scale and measuring cup set.

After the dough had chilled for 30 minutes I rolled and cut it out using the template from the felt gingerbread house I made. I baked it in the oven and used the remaining dough to cut out some smaller biscuits in the shape of trees, a door, candy canes, sweets and gingerbread men.

Whilst the gingerbread biscuits were cooling I made the royal icing in white, red and green. I was also sent OXO’s new bakers 8 piece silicone decorating set and these made piping the icing really easy.

I used the smallest nozzle and piped icing around the gingerbread house and on the roof and then started decorating. I added iced gems to the roof, piped some more icing around the door and biscuits.

My children loved the gingerbread house. It’s not often that I let them play with food but this was one exception. Just like our felt gingerbread house, they were able to place the gingerbread biscuits wherever they liked and change the scene around. I have to admit our gingerbread house only lasted about 24 hours before the children wanted to eat it. But that’s the great thing about a gingerbread house – you can just make another one tomorrow!

OXO teamed up with Stork to provide me with everything I needed to bake a gingerbread house. The baking bundle included OXO’s new bakers 8 piece silicone decorating set (RRP £18), compact food scale (RRP £12), measuring cup set (RRP £6), 11” whisk (RRP £9) and a medium silicone spatula (RRP £7). Stork also kindly donated a tub of their margarine.