Are you making a Gingerbread House this year?

I like making them, but if you have a favorite recipe that is easy to handle, I would appreciate you sharing it! Mine is sometimes too tender or just too impossible to roll out.
Do you use any special decorations you would like to share?
One I will share with you is this year I am going to use the mini Snow Cap nonpareils for either the 'stone' on the house or use them on the roof.

A nearby town has a Festival of Gingerbread and that is one event I hate to miss! They have such cute ideas and intricate detail for all classes!

Thanks in advance!
Linda

I have never made one, but I think they are so cool!! I have a kit for one that I've never made. Every year I say I'm going to make it, just to see how difficult it is to make (it's way too old to eat anymore) but it looks like a very festive, fun thing to do!

Linda, I have never been brave enough to make one but have seen them and they are so neat. maybe I will get brave this year or maybe not. lol
Ruth

I go with the kit every year. I have failed miserably at my attempts at homemade gingerbread. Same problems as you. We like the kit just as well. It takes away from the "heart" of it, but with the kids all they care about is decorating it anyway. LOL. Cant beat it for 12 bucks and no headache.

Tink~

I like to use the Necco wafers for my roof tiles.
Candy canes (and sticks) make great fences.
I try to choose colorful (Skittles are great) candies and seldom use chocolate. Gumdrops are pretty and I use M & Ms in red and green.
I will not be making a gingerbread house at home this year. We are spending Christmas in Naples, Italy with our DD, DSIL, and two DGS but I might help them with a gingerbread house.
The 7 year old DGS has very definite ideas on how a gignerbread house should be decorated. He 'helped' me a couple of years ago and we had a very beautiful house.

I am!!! :)

I am looking at donating a few gingerbread projects to the Festival of Trees, just waiting to hear back for them.

I will probably build another Gingerbread Service Rig and I am planning a huge house.

I will look for a few recipes to post.

Redawna

This is the recipe I use for my g'bread house. It is not a tender dough, but rather stretchy and forgiving as it is rolled. My g'bread house isn't too large (12 x 9 maybe) and I use 1 1/2 recipes of this dough for it. The remaining dough gives me a few cookies to eat too.

Grandma’s Molasses Cookies

1 cup molasses (or sorghum)
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ginger
¼ tsp nutmeg
1 cup buttermilk
2 tsp baking soda
6 cups flour (maybe a little more)

Mix butter, molasses, sugar, and spices in large mixer bowl and beat until light and fluffy. Mix baking soda in with buttermilk (it will foam, give it enough room) and add to butter mixture along with the flour. This makes a thick dough. Chill dough for 30-60 minutes. Roll on floured surface ¼ inch thick. Cut with cookie cutters. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 8-10 minutes in a 350º oven. Larger cookies will take longer to bake.
The cookies will be soft if you only brown them to a dark beige color, but will be crisp and crunchy if you bake them to a deep golden brown.
This recipe calls for no eggs.

Cookiecarol, do you have a great frosting for holding the gumdrops in place? My gumdrops have always want to slide! One year I had to mix glue in with the frosting to get the gumpdrops to stay put!
Linda

Thanks, CC...I have my book out and I don't see this recipe in there.

One year I had some REALLY stiff dough so I wove it around stainless steel bowls sprayed with pam. It made a great thick and firm bowl! lol
Linda

http://www.santas-workshop.org/gingerbread/index.shtml

http://members.nuvox.net/~zt.proicer/cakepict/gb/gb.htm

http://home.comcast.net/~frankysattic/index.html
http://www.baking911.com/cookies/gingerbread_101.htm


Here are some great gingerbread sites.

Redawna

Dolores' Gingerbread Recipe used for GB Houses
You can substitute dark Karo for a different taste or for darker color of baked GB. Or add spices from another recipe if you prefer. Other spices will not alter the baking process. This recipe works the best of any I have ever tried. You can use it the day you make it, once it gets good and cold.
1 cup Melted solid Crisco
1 cup Granulated sugar
1 cup Light Karo (may use dark Karo for more flavor appeal)
2 Large eggs, room temp.
1 ts Salt
1 ts Baking soda
2 ts Ginger
2 ts Cinnamon
1 ts Cloves
1 ts Nutmeg
5 1/2 cup to 5 3/4 Flour or - more to very stiff

con't

METHOD:
METHOD: TO MIX GB DOUGH: Pour melted Crisco into mixer bowl. Let cool slightly; add sugar and Karo, blending well. Add eggs, mixing all until smooth and creamy. Add salt, baking soda and spices into mixture and begin to add flour, just a little at a time. Knead the flour in when dough becomes too stiff for the mixer. DON'T HURRY THIS STEP! Continue adding as much flour as the dough will absorb.
TO ROLL OUT DOUGH: My directions say to spray the surface with PAM, but I don't. It doesn't stick too much. I roll the dough out on heavy-duty foil (splash a few drops of water under it so it will stay stationary on the table), roll the dough out, lay pattern pieces on and cut the desired shapes. Leave a 1" space between each piece so they won't bake together. Remove the excess dough and the pattern pieces.
WINDOWS: Must be cut before baking. You can add crushed hard candy for "a stained glass look." I use "sour ball" candies. I crush them with a hammer before I unwrap the pieces. Slide the foil, holding the gb cutouts, onto a cardboard. Put the foil holding the gb pieces in the oven, right on the oven shelf;
If pieces do bake together, cut them apart immediately after removing from oven, while house parts are still hot and soft. Bake house pieces at 375 degrees for 5-8 minutes. Pieces should not brown. Again, slide the cardboard back under the foil to remove the baked house pieces from the oven. Cool on flat surface.
Makes 2 Medium-sized houses, depending on how thick you roll out the dough. Don't roll it too thin. This weakens the structure of the house. Dough should be rolled out about 1/4" thick. Gingerbread house, made with this recipe, may be assembled as soon as it is good and cold.

GRANDMA'S GINGERBREAD RECIPE See Photos of this 'BOX' in the 'making' - Photo3)
My Daughter Joyce's Favorite Gingerbread House Recipe:
5 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cloves
1 cup solid white vegetable shortening
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup unsulphured molasses *
2 eggs, beaten
* Use robust molasses for dark gingerbread, Joyce uses Brier Rabbit

METHOD: Preheat oven to 350 deg; F or temp. specified. Thoroughly blend flour, soda, salt and spices; set aside. Melt shortening in large saucepan. Add sugar, molasses and eggs; mix well. When mixture is cool, add 4 cups of the blended dry ingredients and mix well.

Turn mixture onto light floured surface. Knead in remaining dry ingredients by hand. Add a little more flour, if necessary, to make a firm dough.

Roll out dough on lightly oiled cookie sheets (I don't oil - I roll out on heavy-duty aluminum foil).
NOTE: Wilton cookie sheets have no edges and will not buckle during baking, making them a smart investment.

Baking time varies according to thickness of rolled dough. For large pieces, 1/8-l/4" thick, bake as long as 17-20 minutes. For smaller pieces, rolled thinly, 6 to 15 minutes may be enough. Check frequently to avoid over-browning. Remove from cookie sheets to wire racks with a large spatula. Cool about 30 minutes. Cover flat surface, counter or cookie sheet, with paper toweling and place baked pieces on it to dry and crisp overnight.

To store, wrap dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate. Knead briefly to roll out. Yields enough for most of our projects. If additional dough is needed, it will be noted. When making a project with sides that fit together, lean them together to make sure that they fit. Cut away excess or trim to fit with a craft knife.

Thanks, Redawna...I will check out the sites. I look through these sites all year and then I get clueless when it is time to make them.
I am so impressed with the rig you made-and the house was so cute! Since I saw them, except for last week, my mind has just been planning and changing over and over...
They are just so much fun to make, aren't they!
Tink, I have made my share of the precut houses...It can be frustrating when the dough doesn't do what it is supposed to do~
Linda

Since my birthday is in December my mother made me a gingerbread house for my birthday when I was just a little girl. It was such a success it became our tradition and we had a gingerbread house each year. When I married my mom gave me the recipe and said it was time I made my own gingerbread house and I have been doing just that all these years. I still use the same pattern.
This frosting recipe will dry like cement. It uses egg whites and you can buy Wilton meringue powder if you don't want to eat raw eggs. I make my gingerbread house the day after Thanksgiving and throw it out after New Years. We never eat is....I figure it is dusty and we always have a house full of cookies anyway.

Cement Frosting.

2 egg whites, beaten to soft peaks
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar (should sift if lumpy)

This makes a stiff frosting, I put it in a pastry bag and when there is frosting left over, I put the bag and all in a Tupperware and refrigerate it.