Ad | Making A Gingerbread House (with HARIBO)

I've worked with HARIBO quite a lot recently, partly because they've brought out a whole range of vegetarian sweets which I can eat too! They asked if I'd be interested in sharing the #HARIBOFestiveFun by making a gingerbread house and decorating it with HARIBO sweets. I replied that I was already planning to, so it couldn't have fallen better really...

Gingerbread houses are synonymous with Christmas, even though there's no law that says you can't eat them year round. Those festive flavours and the spectacle of a gorgeous sweet treat in the middle of the table are just perfect, and ridiculously easy to make. Trust me.

HARIBO sent us some sweeties and a really excellent Lakeland gingerbread house cutter kit in a fantastic box covered in 'cut-out' photo props. I've had a phone disaster and lost those photos, but fortunately I uploaded a 20 second video to Instagram.

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A post shared by The Brick Castle (@thebrickcastle) on Dec 13, 2019 at 4:24am PST

We'll be using the Lakeland gingerbread house cutter kit to create our house, but gingerbread is easy to cut to almost any shape with a steady hand or even a cardboard template - as I did when I made my Gingerbread Castle a couple of years ago.

The recipe for gingerbread is very simple, and although you'll find variations, they're much the same as this BBC Good Food gingerbread recipe. Heat and mix the syrup, sugar and butter, then remove from the heat and add in the other ingredients. Mix to a dough and roll out. We went for thick, because my son likes softer gingerbread.

There are some amazing gingerbread creations out there, but I think the best designs are the ones my own children make, so wobbly walls and lots of extra 'snow' on the roof don't bother me. Ours was actually covered in over-zealous flour before it was even baked. We like to think of it as 'uniquenesss'.

To fix the gingerbread together, use royal icing (icing sugar, egg white and a drop of lemon juice). It sets very quickly, but you will need to find 'supports' in the right size to hold everything still. Time to raid the kitchen drawer, spice rack and mug tree.

Once your house is built, you can really go to town. My 11 year old was hovering in the kitchen excitedly and couldn't wait to get stuck in. I think the opportunity to test the decorations as you put them on is great incentive!

HARIBO are actually as good for gingerbread houses as they are for Christmas stockings. The sweets stick well, they're light, and they're colourful. There are a variety of shapes and angles, plus you can cut them up really easily to broaden your scope even further.

There is plenty of red, green and white, and those Giant Trees - which don't forget are now vegetarian! You can also add the Pip Polar Bears and Puck Penguins if your Gingerbread House is in an antarctic position - apparently ours is more North Pole near Santa. Kids are too clever nowadays...

I think you'll agree this is a fine Gingerbread House - and it's very tasty too. You may have noticed from the photos that we did make an extra batch of gingerbread, so our little cottage isn't being eaten just yet....

HARIBO are available in just about every supermarket, sweet store or corner shop, and the Christmas Limited Edition sweets from HARIBO are available at larger stores until stocks last. Find out more about the whole range, and the special Christmas Editions, on the HARIBO UK website. 

We were sent the HARIBO Gingerbread House Goodie Box as shown above in return for writing this post.