Gingerbread Cutter Care Instructions, Recipes, Tips, Tricks & More!

Hey there!


Thank you so much for buying from Spot Industries! 


We really appreciate your business and hope you enjoy your cutters as much as we’ve enjoyed making them for you.


To ensure you get the most out of your purchase we’ve prepared this list of important next steps and helpful information.


Please read it completely.


Your next steps are: 


  • Read the Care Instructions for your product. It contains important information you need to understand to avoid damaging your product and ensuring it lasts for years to come.
  • When your package arrives carefully inspect the contents. Please send us a message immediately if your item was damaged, is missing parts, or does not meet your expectations in any way.
  • We’ve included recipes and helpful tips & tricks for a fun baking experience! Read them at the bottom of this document.
  •  Your feedback is very important to us. Once you’ve used your purchase and confirmed you’re 100% satisfied please leave a detailed review. Got pictures? Tips? Tricks? Share them in your review! This will help other crafters and help us grow.
  •  If you’re not happy with your experience for any reason, please tell us so we can make it right.

Warmly,

Jennifer, Matt & Pete


Care Instructions

Our cutters are made with high quality biodegradable plastic that is food safe! 


This plastic is made from corn starch. While this is good for the environment, you need to care for them to avoid damage.


Do not heat cutters. At temperatures above 60° Celsius (140° F) they will deform.


Do not press cutters into hot dough. Use a knife instead.


Cutters MUST be hand washed in lukewarm, soapy water. 


Washing in the dishwasher will permanently damage them. Washing with hot water or chemical cleaners will also damage them.


To minimize wear, wash immediately after use. Do not use chemical cleaners. 


Store out of direct sunlight to avoid colours fading.


Purchase Contents

# of pieces: 9

All pieces in your cutter set are labelled to assist you in shaping the dough. Your cutters are labelled with a description (like “End Wall”) or a number (1-6).

The large, labelled cutters form the walls and roof. The smaller, numbered cutters are used to make the windows, doors and chimney. 

gingerbread house pattern

Cutter

Impressions Required

End Wall

2

# 1

2 (one per End Wall)

# 2

2 (one per End Wall)

Side Wall

2

# 3

1 (Front Door)

# 4

4 (two per Side Wall)

Roof Panel

2

# 5

2

# 6

2



Building Your Gingerbread House

Helpful Tips

  • The ideal thickness of the cooked gingerbread is ¼” (6.5mm) after baking.

    Be sure to roll the dough flat enough to account for rise during baking. This may take some work! The dough is fairly tough but keep rolling until it is thin enough. If the gingerbread is too thick, you may experience difficulty attaching the roof and chimney.
  • The chimney (cutters 5 and 6) are designed for roof cookies with ¼” (6.5mm) thickness. If your cookies are thicker, carefully slice the chimney cookies with a knife.

Instructions

  1. Follow the recipe for making and rolling the gingerbread dough. You will be making the following impressions in the dough with the cutters. After making imprints in the dough, leave the cut-out pieces in place to prevent the cookie from expanding into the open space.

    This means you bake each shape with a little outline of gingerbread around it and the windows / door filled in. Don’t worry we’ll trim these partway through baking and the outlines will make tasty treats once they’re cooked!

Gingerbread that has been cut using our gingerbread cutters  

  1. Bake the cookies according to the recipe. Half-way through baking, remove the cookies from the oven and use a KNIFE (not the cutters!) to cut the lines down to the baking sheet. Return cookies to the oven.
  2. Once cookies have finished baking, allow to cool for several minutes (but not all the way hard). Use a knife to gently remove the windows, front door and chimney pieces and set aside.
  3. Wait for the cookies to harden completely – ideally overnight. This hardening removes moisture from the dough.

    If you have too much moisture in the dough it will slowly melt your glue and/or icing, resulting in your gingerbread house falling apart.

    If you don’t want to wait overnight you can bake the dough significantly longer. Let cool completely before starting construction.

Once hardened, it’s time to begin construction! Find a sturdy piece of cardboard or plank of wood and cover with aluminum foil. This will be the base of your gingerbread house. 

  1. For best results, use a glue made of melted sugar to fix the cookies, and royal icing for decoration. To make the sugar glue, simply add one cup of white sugar to a small saucepan. Heat the sugar, stirring constantly until it becomes liquid. Once the sugar reaches a light golden-brown colour, reduce heat to low. If the sugar gets overheated, don’t worry! The syrup will still make an effective glue, but will just taste burnt.

Caution: The sugar glue is very hot and can burn your skin. It can become stringy and hold heat for a long time, even after the glue has set and seems cool to the touch. Never attempt to touch or taste the sugar glue until it has fully cooled. 

  1. Using cans as supports, place one End Wall and one Side Wall where you would like to begin construction. Dip the lower portion of the End Wall into the sugar glue and place the cookie on the aluminum foil base. Hold in place until sugar glue sets. Repeat this for the Side Wall. You should now have two walls of the house in place and should be able to wiggle them back and forth slightly. Line up the edges of the End Wall and Side Wall; using a knife, carefully scoop a small amount of sugar glue from the saucepan and drizzle into the gap between the two walls.  Gently press the wall corners together and hold in position until the sugar glue sets. Repeat procedure for the remaining walls, front door (if desired) and roof. Soup cans can be used to prop the walls as the sugar sets.

Tip: Once you have a spoonful of sugar glue, allow it to cool and thicken slightly before applying to the cookies.

  1. Once the roof is in place, note the angle at the very top of the roof and compare to the cookie made from cutter #5 (the angled chimney ends). Test-fit these pieces and adjust the fit as required with a knife or microplane. Apply sugar glue to these angled pieces first and affix to the roof, then secure the rectangular chimney side pieces (from cutter #6). 
  2. You can now start the decoration process!

Recipes 

Gingerbread

We recommend King Arthur Flour’s Construction Gingerbread Recipe

Be sure to roll your dough thin! The dough is tough and requires considerable work to roll thinly. It rises about double when cooked.

Feel free to add more ginger and cinnamon for extra flavour and scent!

Gluten-Free Gingerbread

We recommend GF Jules’ GF Gingerbread Recipe

While this recipe doesn’t use many common household flours it produces a construction-grade gingerbread that works well.

Bob’s 1:1 GF flour or King Arthur 1:1 GF flour can be used instead of GF Jules brand. Avoid general purpose GF flours as a substitute.

Magic Glue

While icing can be used for construction and is safe for children it can be fussy to work with. It takes a long time to set and requires pieces to be held together for a long period of time.

A quicker and stronger approach is to use melted sugar. It sets in seconds and produces a very solid bond.

To make sugar glue add one cup of white sugar to a small saucepan. Heat the sugar, stirring constantly until it becomes liquid. Once the sugar reaches a light golden-brown colour, reduce heat to low. If the sugar gets overheated, don’t worry! The syrup will still make an effective glue but will just taste burnt.
 

Caution: The sugar glue is very hot and can burn your skin. It can become stringy and hold heat for a long time, even after the glue has set and seems cool to the touch. Never attempt to touch or taste the sugar glue until it has fully cooled. 


This glue is not suitable for children!


Do not expose cutters or other low temperature plastics to glue. They will melt.


Chimney Smoke

The magic glue can also be used to make a neat smoke effect for the chimney. 

Get a square piece of parchment paper or one high temperature flexible silicone baking mat. 

Roll mat into a cone shape and tape together part way up, away from the pointy end of the cone.

Using a spoon, carefully drizzle a small amount of the magic sugar glue onto the top (pointy end) of the cone from about 4-5 inches above.  Move the spoon in swirls and allow the strands of sugar glue to overlap on the mat.  The melted sugar should be stringy and leave a web-like pattern once drizzled on the cone.

Repeat this process many times, covering all sides of the cone with a web-like pattern of sugar glue.

Allow to cool completely (approx. 10 minutes).

Apply icing to the inside of the chimney. 

Carefully lift cooled and dried sugar cone off the parchment paper / mat.

Invert and place inside the chimney while icing is still soft.

Icing

We recommend King Arthur Flour’s Construction Gingerbread Recipe Icing

This recipe is good for both construction value and taste. We suggest cooling it in the refrigerator before piping.

 

Feedback, Reviews & More

We love hearing from you!

Enjoying your purchase? Give us a five star review!

These are really important to helping us grow and we appreciate you taking the time to tell others about your great experience.

We also love seeing your creations! We regularly share the work of our customers with our community.

Check out the links below that showcase the work of some of our customers!

Sugar Cookie Gingerbread House By Kari Skelton

 

Customer service

 

If anything with your purchase or experience was lacking please reach out to us and we'll make it right. Simple as that.