Something that has become a wonderful tradition for us is making gingerbread house cookies with royal icing. We absolutely love making them. We don’t use any templates to cut out the little houses. In a collaboration with Linda Lomelino, photographer and author of Call me Cup Cake we'll show you in the video below how to make the perfect homemade Christmas tree decoration. Gingerbread house cookies with royal icing
makes 30-50 cookies, depending on size. The gingerbread recipe can easily be halved. 

Ingredients
gingerbread dough
100 g (1 scant stick) salted butter
75 ml (1/3 cup) molasses, dark or golden syrup
135 g (2/3 cup) granulated sugar
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cloves
3/4 tsp. ground cardamom
75 ml (1/3 cup) heavy cream
300 g (approx. 2 cups) all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
pinch of salt

royal icing
1 egg white (about 30 g)
200-240 g (about 1 2/3 cup) powdered sugar
1 tsp. vinegar

instructions gingerbread cookies
1. Combine butter, molasses and sugar in a saucepan and place over medium heat. When the mixture is melted, stir in cinnamon, ginger, cloves and cardamom. Remove from the heat and let cool for 5 minutes. Stir in the heavy cream. 
2. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and stir until a soft dough forms. Cover the bowl and let it rest in the fridge for at least 24 hours.
3. Remove the dough from the fridge about 20 minutes before rolling out the cookies. Preheat the oven to 390°F (200°C).
4. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough (I usually roll out 1/4 of the dough at a time as I find it easier to control the thickness) to about 5-6 mm thickness. If you’re making house cookies, simply use a knife to cut out the shapes you want. If you’re making gingerbread cookies with a doily: Dust some flour over the dough. Place a clean lace doily on top and gently press it onto the dough, then roll out the dough with the doily on top to 3-4 mm thickness. The cookies need to be quite thin or they will puff up too much in the oven and the pattern will fade. Gently remove the doily and cut out cookies using cookie cutters or a knife. Transfer the cookies to a baking sheet with baking paper.
5. Bake the cookies for 5-7 minutes depending on size. If you’d like to use them as Christmas tree decoration or gift tags, make a small hole with a toothpick as soon as the cookies come out of the oven. Let cool completely.

royal icing
1. Combine the egg white, powdered sugar and vinegar in a medium bowl and beat until fluffy using a hand mixer. 
2. Spoon some of the icing into a piping bag (don’t overfill the bag) fitted with a small, round piping tip. we are using Wilton 1S which is very small. Ice the cookies as you wish!