Gingerbread House Tutorial

Hello there again! How are you? We are doing fine here. A bit chilly--no, scratch that--we're down right cold! On the upside, my handsome hubby got an extra day off of work today because of the cold. :o) Great day for snuggling and hot cocoa.

I know it's a little late for Christmas, but, honestly, it's never too early to start planning for next year. In fact, I'm hosting a Homespun Christmas 12 Month Challenge over on my craft blog to help make things a bit easier next year. There's always so many fun activities going on around Christmas, that I am hoping to get as much of the prep work and crafts done ahead of time to leave me more room for family fun. Feel free to check it out and join in the challenge.

One of things we do every year is make a gingerbread house. Actually, I bake and assemble 20+ houses. I don't decorate them all though. The kids at church get to decorate them after their Christmas play practice. It's always a lot of fun, and I've learned some tricks to make it easier over the years. Making gingerbread is a bit messy, but Michelle volunteered to keep her hands clean and take photos for me of the process.  How about I share them with you? Consider it an early Christmas gift from us to you. You're welcome. :o)

First off, I start by making up the gingerbread dough. I've tried several recipes over the last couple of years and I think I've settled on one I like the best. I had some criteria I was looking for as I searched for recipes. First off, it couldn't call for a lot of expensive ingredients. My original recipe called for 6 eggs. That's a LOT of eggs when you have to make 5 or 6 batches of dough. I also didn't want to use butter or a lot of molasses. I wanted the houses to taste good, but honestly, the houses are usually so stale by the time the kids eat them (if they do), I doubt they would taste that great even if I had used the most expensive ingredients available. I also did not want a recipe that had to be refrigerated before rolling it out. I never know exactly how many batches I need to make and don't want to have too much, or have to wait for another batch to chill.

I didn't get pictures of all the steps, but I figure you know how to mix up cookie dough, which is pretty much what this is.

Start by preheating your oven to 350 and placing a non-skid mat (shelf liner) under your cookie sheet to keep it from sliding around while you roll out the dough. You need a sheet that only has one raised side. If you don't have one like this, try turning your regular cookie sheet upside down. It makes it easier to roll the dough directly on the sheet.

Once you've made up your dough (recipe is below), place about a third of it on your well sprayed cookie sheet. Flatten it out a bit with your hands and sprinkle a generous amount of flour to keep it from sticking. You can see that it looks pretty crumbly on the edges. As long as it comes together as you roll and pat it, it's fine.

Roll the dough out to about 1/8 inch thick, covering as much of the cookie sheet as you can.

I use a piece of PVC pipe as a rolling pin to flatten out the dough near the raised edge.

Using a pattern, or these totally awesome cutters from Wilton, cut out your pieces.

Butt the pieces right up next to each other.

Once you've cut as many as will fit on the sheet, remove any extra dough and put it back in your bowl to be re-rolled later.

Bake them for 10-12 minutes. As soon as they come out of the oven, re-cut them with your patterns or pieces. You will have to work pretty quickly, one because the dough hardens up as it cools, and 2 because your hands will get pretty hot working on the hot dough.

Here you can see where the dough has expanded a bit so re-cutting helps to keep your pieces the size they need to be to assemble correctly.

Optional-hire one of your young'uns to help with some of the clean-up between batches. ;o)

Keep re-rolling the dough, cutting and baking till you're almost out of dough. I usually use the last bit to cut out a bunch of people. These I cut on the counter and transfer to the cookie sheet. It's MUCH easier than trying to pick out all the little extra pieces from between the people.

A little foot note here, it took me about 5 hours one afternoon/evening to make 6 batches of dough and bake pieces for 26 houses. I also have 2 cookie sheets, so while one is baking I can roll another out. I take all the pieces over to the church (where the decorating fun happens) and assemble them there the day before the party.

I forgot to get photos of the assembly process, so maybe next year I will update this with more photos of that. I have included the recipe for the frosting glue to hold the houses together. I will say that you should stock up on some cake circles or rectangles. I used to cut cardboard squares and cover them with foil every year. I began to realize that my time was worth more than the little extra I spent on the cake circles (I've since found that you can get them pretty cheap on Amazon-this batch should last me a couple of years). I also found that the houses would often pop off the foil, but they tend to stick to the bare boards better, and since they're white, the kids can pretend it's snow. Win-win.

Here's the houses all lined up and ready for the kids. I provide the houses and the bags of frosting, but the kids are asked to each bring a bag or two of candy/cereal to use for decorating. I divide the unwrapped candies into disposable plates or bowls, and the wrapped candy is just spread out along the table. I usually set this up while the kids are practicing.

I make the frosting the day before and put it in disposable bags with a rubber band on the open end. You can see why in this photo. :o) I don't cut the tip off the bag until they are ready to start decorating, royal frosting crusts and hardens up pretty quick. When they finish their lunch, they come to see me, I cut the tip off a bag for them, and they are off and having fun. I also usually have a label with their name on it to put on the board of their house to help prevent any squabbles later. 

This photo was from a couple years ago, but it's a good shot of the bag.

 After all that work, and the following clean-up, your last step is to...

I guess that's about it. Hope you enjoy this little (or not so little) tutorial, and hope you get a chance to make some gingerbread houses next year. One batch of dough makes about 4 houses. Maybe your littles could invite a friend or two over for a fun afternoon. 

Gingerbread dough (makes about 4 houses using the Wilton gingerbread house cutters)

• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup vegetable shortening
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup molasses
• 2 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350. Place your cookie sheet on top of a non-skid mat (shelf liner) so it won't slide all around on you while you're rolling the dough out. Spray it well with cooking spray.
2. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. 
3. In another bowl beat the shortening and sugar until creamy. Add the molasses and eggs and combine well. Slowly stir in the dry ingredients. Your dough will probably look kind of crumbly, that's OK. 
4. Take about a third of the dough out and place it on your cookie sheet and use your hands to flatten it out a bit. It probably won't look very pretty. Sprinkle a generous amount of flour on top. Using a rolling pin and plenty of flour, roll the dough out over as much of the cookie sheet as you can. I usually try to cover the whole thing until I get to the end of my batch of dough and it just won't cover that much. You want it to be about an 1/8 inch think. 
5. Using patterns or cutters (this is TOTALLY the way to go if you're making a lot) cut out your pieces making sure you butt the pieces right up next to each other. This will help it from spreading out too much and getting out of shape. Once you've gotten as many shapes as you can on your cookie sheet, remove the extra dough and put it back in the bowl. 
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. The dough will have expanded slightly, so you need to re-cut your pieces as soon as they come out of the oven while the dough is still soft (this is where having cutters is really nice). Remove to a wire rack to cool. The pieces will harden up as they cool. (Any extra cut off pieces make yummy snacks while you're working. ;o)
7. Repeat the rolling, cutting, baking sequence with the remainder of the dough. 

Royal Frosting (Fills 6 bags)

• 6 Tablespoons meringue powder
• 2 lbs powdered sugar
• just less than 2/3 cup water

Place all ingredients in a stand mixer and whip for several minutes (5-7). This is slightly softer than most meringue recipes, but I wanted it to be easy for the kids to squeeze out of the bags. 

Till next time...
God's love and blessings!