Holiday Cabin (Savory Gingerbread House)
Prepare to dazzle your guests with this savory gingerbread house shaped as a holiday cabin. Add it to your charcuterie board and it will be a perfect match!
The holidays are almost here! Can you believe it?
Every year, I’m dreaming about making a gingerbread house, but then there’s always so much candy and I don’t want to end up with waste. Because there’s no way we can eat all of it. And that’s why I decided that this year I’m gonna make a savory gingerbread house. Something small, that we can eat immediately.
Making a savory house is a bit different because creating savory icing that doesn’t contain water is very hard. When the icing has water it’s going to make the cookie (or in this case cracker) become soft after a while. That’s why this is a house that needs to be eaten within an hour of making it.
Why two differet kinds of crackers in the savory gingerbread house?
I made the house with two different types of crackers, simply for variety when people eat it. If you don’t feel like making two different crackers, don’t worry. You can make just one. Each of the two cracker recipes in this article is enough to make a house. This means that if you make two, you have enough crackers to make two houses!
I imagined a cabin made of stone with a wooden roof and that’s why I baked crackers with lots of seeds to mimic that stone appearance. And I used the regular rye crackers to make the door and the roof.
To make the house stand I used processed cheese and I used cream cheese to frost the roof to make the salty sticks adhere to the roof. I also used cream cheese to decorate the house. The same way as I would if I used royal icing – with a piping bag.
Holiday Cabin (Savory Gingerbread House)
Ingredients
Wholegrain Rye Crackers
- 2½ cups wholegrain rye flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup water
- 5 TBSP olive oil
Wholegrain seed crackers
- 80 g wholegrain rye flour
- 250 ml water
- 50 g flax seeds
- 40 g sunflower seeds
- 40 g sesame seeds
- 40 g black sesame seeds
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 TBSP olive oil
Icing and decorations
- processed cheese for gluing the crackers together
- cream cheese for frosting the roof and decorating the house
- salty sticks
- peanuts
- olives
- rosemary
- transparent jelly
Instructions
Wholegrain Rye Crackers
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Place all ingredients in a bowl and gently bring together. Do not knead too much or else the crackers won't be as crunchy.
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Add more water if necessary. The dough should be pretty firm and not overly stiky.
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Place the dough onto baking paper and roll out 3-4 mm thick.
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Cut out the house using paper template (you can get the template below the recipe)
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Make sure the cuts are pretty significant, but don't move any parts of the house. Everything should be close together to prevent the shapes to change.
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Transfer the paper gently onto a baking tray and bake in a preheated oven at 180°C (350°F) for 20 minutes.
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When the crackers are baked remove them from the oven but leave them on the baking tray to cool down completely, before transfering them off the tray. They will harden as they cook.
Wholegrain seed crackers
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Mix flax seeds with water and leave them to soak for 30 minutes.
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Add the rest of the ingredients and bring them together in a dough. Don't overmix.
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Place the dough onto baking paper and roll out 3-4 mm thick.
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Cut out the house using a paper template (you can get the template below the recipe)
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Make sure the cuts are pretty significant but don't move any parts of the house. Everything should be close together to prevent the shapes to change.
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Transfer the paper gently onto a baking tray and bake in a preheated oven at 180°C (350°F) for 20 minutes.
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When the crackers are baked remove them from the oven but leave them on the baking tray to cool down completely, before transfering them off the tray. They will harden as they cook.
Decorating the house
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Use cream cheese to frost the roof and add salty sticks on top, to create a wooden look.
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Once the roof is done use processed cheese to glue all the pieces of the house together.
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Place the chimney on top.
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Use cream cheese to pipe snow on the house and to decorate as you like.
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You can use peanut halves to create a stone path, make firm jelly using water and gelatine to create icecubes, halve olives and add rosemary inside to create flower pots or use rosemary as decorations. Imagination is the limit. Be creative!
