How to Make Gingerbread Houses

FROM SCRATCH!

Like Christmases in the past, the girls and I are going to make a  Gingerbread House this year. Now this is not your regular graham cracker over milk cartons or your store bought kit complete with cardboard that passes itself off as gingerbread and generic run of the mill candies. We are making the REAL thing. Homemade ginger bread cut into pieces, glued together with homemade royal icing and decorated to the hilt with all sorts of candy that we have spent hours at the store deliberating over. We got this recipe from Simply Recipes, and it even comes with the patterns to cut your gingerbread pieces out with...so without further ado- here it is:

Ingredients

• 6 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 4 teaspoons ground ginger
• 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves or allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 1/2 sticks (12 Tbsp) butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar

• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup dark molasses
• 1 Tbsp water

Method

Make the Gingerbread Dough

1 Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl, set aside.
2 Using an electric mixer, beat on medium speed the butter and brown sugar until fluffy and well blended. Beat in the eggs, molasses and water until well combined.
3 Beat half of the flour mixture into the molasses mixture until well blended and smooth. Stir in the remaining flour. Knead (or use your mixer's dough hook) until well blended. If dough is too soft, add a little more flour.
4 Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least two hours, preferably overnight. You can make it up to 3 days ahead of time. Let sit at room temperature for at least 10 minutes before rolling out.

Create and Cut Out Pattern Pieces

Create a gingerbread house pattern by cutting out pieces of stiff paper (like that of a manila folder) or cardboard. I like cardboard because it's almost as thick as the gingerbread house pieces will be, and you can create a house model easily using the pieces. The following links are to gif images of the pattern that we used to make these houses. They should print out with the correct proportions (1 inch on the pattern = 1 inch in real life), but if not, the dimensions are also given on the pattern so you can use a ruler and create your own.
Roof Pattern
Side and Chimney Pattern
Front and Back Pattern

Make the Gingerbread House Pieces

1 Preheat oven to 350°F, with the oven rack in the middle. Have several flat cookie sheets ready, preferably ones that you know will not warp in the oven heat.
2 Divide the dough in two. Spread parchment paper or wax paper on a large flat surface for rolling. Dust the paper lightly with flour. Working with one portion of the dough at a time, use a rolling pin to roll out the dough to an even thickness of 1/4-inch. Add a little flour to the surface of the dough, and check for sticking as you roll it out. If it sticks to either your rolling pin or the rolling surface, dust with more flour. If the rolled out dough is very soft, you may want to freeze it for an hour before cutting out the patterns.
3 Rub a little flour over the surface of the dough. Place the pattern pieces on the dough, as many pattern pieces as will fit on the dough. Use a small sharp knife to cut out the pattern pieces from the dough, wiping the knife surface clean frequently. Depending on how soft the dough is, you may need to use scissors to cut the wax paper or parchment paper. You can cut out the patterns through the dough and parchment paper, placing the dough pieces with the paper directly on the cookie sheets. If you are not using parchment paper or wax paper, you may need to use a large metal spatula to transfer the dough pieces to a greased cookie sheet. Space the pieces on the cookie sheet an inch apart from each other. If dough pieces stretch during the transfer process, push them back into shape.
You can cut out a door and window(s) at this point, or you can wait until after baking, soon after the pieces have come out of the oven while the cookies are still warm.
4 Bake in a 350°F oven until the edges are just beginning to darken, 11-15 minutes for the large pieces, 6-8 minutes for the small pieces. Rotate the cookie sheets half way through the baking for more even browning. Remove the sheets to racks to cool, about 15 minutes.
While the pieces are still slightly warm, lay the pattern pieces over them and use a large straight chef's knife to trim off any parts of the pieces that have through cooking spread beyond the pattern.
Remove pieces to cool directly on racks to cool completely.

Make Royal Icing

Royal icing is not only used for decorating, but it is the mortar that holds the gingerbread pieces together to form the house. The following proportions should make enough icing for both the mortaring step and for decorating for one gingerbread house.

• 2 large egg whites
• 2 2/3 cup powdered sugar, divided

1 Whisk together until smooth the egg whites and 1 1/3 cups of the powdered sugar.
2 If you are planning to eat your gingerbread house, and are concerned about the safety of raw eggs, you can microwave the egg white powdered sugar mixture for several seconds (30-40) until the mixture reaches a temperature of 160 degrees, but not higher than 175°F. You can also use pasteurized dried or liquid egg whites.
3 Add the remaining 1 1/3 cup of powdered sugar to the sugar egg mixture. Using an electric mixer, beat on high speed until the icing holds stiff peaks. If it doesn't form stiff peaks, add more powdered sugar.
4 Place a dampened clean towel over the bowl of royal icing. Keep this towel over the icing to prevent it from drying out while you work with it.
5 When you are ready to mortar or decorate, fill a pastry bag with the icing. If you don't have a pastry bag, you can make your own with a re-sealable plastic freezer bag, just cut off the tip (a small cut) of one of the corners of the bag. Plastic or metal piping tips are available in supermarkets which you can also use with a freezer bag, for more controlled piping.

Construct the Basic House, Mortaring the Pieces Together with Royal Icing

This is where it really helps to have more than two hands working on a house, and why making a gingerbread house is so much more fun with company than alone. If you are working on this alone, it may help to grab some canned goods from the pantry and use the cans to help prop up the pieces while the icing mortar is drying.
1 Pick a solid base for your gingerbread house - either a flat cookie sheet, or a thick, sturdy piece of cardboard. If you want, line the base with aluminum foil or wax paper.
2 Pipe a thick line of icing along a short end of one of the side pieces. Press the iced side piece against the edge of either the front or back pieces. Hold in place for a few minutes until the icing is partially set. Repeat with the other side piece. Prop up with cans if necessary. Repeat with the other short edges of the side pieces and the remaining front/back piece. Pipe icing along the seams, inside and outside of the house, to fill in any gaps and to add extra stability. Pipe icing along the edges of the house where it meets the base. Let set for at least an hour before attempting to add the roof pieces.


If any of the gingerbread house pattern pieces breaks, as can happen easily when working with what are essentially cookies, most likely you can repair them. On my house I forgot to cut out the door and window until the front piece had almost completely cooled. When I went to make the cuts, the piece broke. Fortunately, it was easy to mortar back together with royal icing. We even created a "splint" out of cardboard and used royal icing to hold the splint to the piece. Let harden completely before using the piece for the house construction. When it comes time to decorate, you can pipe icing right over the broken seam and no one will be the wiser.


3 Once the royal icing has dried enough so that the base structure is solid, you can go to work on the roof. Pipe icing all along the top edges of the structure, front and back and two sides. The roof pieces are a rectangular shaped. Place the roof pieces so that the long ends of the rectangle are running along the top of the house. It helps if you have two people working together to place the roof pieces on the house at the same time so that they meet easily at the top center, and extend out a little bit, forming an overhang at each end. Gently hold the roof pieces in place for a few minutes until they are set enough so they don't slide off when you remove your hands. Pipe the top seam of the house with extra icing. Let the house stand for at least an hour, and preferably 8 hours before decorating.
Note: If you have pets in your house, keep them away from the gingerbread house during all phases of construction and decorating. Non-gingerbread-house-building-participating adults and children should be informed to keep their hands off the house as well.

4 The chimney. The dimensions of the chimney can be a bit tricky because of the angle of the roof. Although you may have cut your chimney out of a pattern, these small pieces likely have spread a bit through cooking, and you may have to use a chef's knife to cut the pieces and adjust the angles of the pieces so they align better with the roof. It's easiest to assemble the chimney first upside down, separate from the house. Pipe the pieces together with royal icing and let set until stable. Then, turn the chimney right-side-up and attach it to the roof using piped royal icing. You can do this either right after the house has initially set (1 hour after assembly) or later, during the decorating process.

Decorate the Gingerbread House

This step requires a trip to the candy section of your local grocery store. You can decorate your house with whatever types of candy pleases you. Be careful taking kids along to the store however, as you will invariably buy more candy than you actually need (though they do have the best ideas of what candies would be good for various decorative effects). Red hots are really practical, as are small gumdrops, and candy canes. Audrey used a whole bag of chocolate truffles for the stone wall around her house, and some type of waffle-patterned cookies for roof tiles.
Pipe royal icing to make decorative designs around the walls of the house and roof. Use royal icing to "glue" pieces of candy to the house.

I'm going tom ake the gingerbread either tonight or tomorrow and as soon as our houses are complete, w3e will take lots of pictures and get them posted up here. :)

Thanksgiving Menu and Recipes

Turkey
Ham
mashed potatoes and gravy
stuffing
orange creamsicle salad
cranberry salad
sweet potato casserole
green bean casserole
deviled eggs
potato rolls
pumpkin pie
pecan pie

recipes:
turkey-

Ingredients

• 1 (12 pound) whole turkey
• 6 tablespoons butter, divided
• 4 cups warm water
• 3 tablespoons chicken bouillon
• 2 tablespoons dried parsley
• 2 tablespoons dried minced onion
• 2 tablespoons seasoning salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Rinse and wash turkey. Discard the giblets, or add to pan if they are anyone's favorites.
2. Place turkey in a Dutch oven or roasting pan. Separate the skin over the breast to make little pockets. Put 3 tablespoons of the butter on both sides between the skin and breast meat. This makes for very juicy breast meat.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the water with the bouillon. Sprinkle in the parsley and minced onion. Pour over the top of the turkey. Sprinkle seasoning salt over the turkey.
4. Cover with foil, and bake in the preheated oven 3 1/2 to 4 hours, until the internal temperature of the turkey reaches 180 degrees F (80 degrees C). For the last 45 minutes or so, remove the foil so the turkey will brown nicely.

ham-

Ingredients

• 1 (5 pound) ready-to-eat ham
• 1/4 cup whole cloves
• 1/4 cup dark corn syrup
• 2 cups honey
• 2/3 cup butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. Score ham, and stud with the whole cloves. Place ham in foil lined pan.
3. In the top half of a double boiler, heat the corn syrup, honey and butter. Keep glaze warm while baking ham.
4. Brush glaze over ham, and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Baste ham every 10 to 15 minutes with the honey glaze. During the last 4 to 5 minutes of baking, turn on broiler to caramelize the glaze. Remove from oven, and let sit a few minutes before serving.

stuffing-



• 2 medium onions, minced
• 2 -3 stalks celery, chopped fine
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning (I use Bell's)
• 2 cups chicken broth or 2 cups turkey broth or 2 cups vegetable broth
• hot water
• 2 (6 ounce) packages stove top-style seasoned stuffing mix

•  

• Directions:

  
  

  1. 1
     Saute onions and celery in butter.
  2. 2
     Sprinkle with poultry seasoning.
  3. 3
     Set aside to cool slightly.
  4. 4
     Toss this mixture into your favorite dry stuffing mix.
  5. 5
     Heat broth and set aside.
  6. 6
     Read directions on your favorite stuffing mix box.
  7. 7
     Add enough hot water to the broth to make up the required liquid needed.
  8. 8
     (Omit butter the recipe calls for as it was already used to saute vegetables.)
  9. 9
     Pour over stuffing/vegetables mixture and mix well.
  10. 10
      Stuff your chicken or turkey. For a side dish place stuffing in a baking dish; cover and bake for 15 to 25 minutes at 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
  orange creamsicle salad
  

  Ingredients:

  1 (3 1/4 ounce) package tapioca pudding

  • 1 (3 1/2 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding
  • 1 (3 ounce) package orange Jell-O
  • 2 1/4 cups water
  • 1 (8 ounce) container Cool Whip
  • 2 (10 ounce) cans mandarin oranges, drained

  Directions:

  
  

  1. 1
     Combine pudding mixes, Jello and water, stirring well.
  2. 2
     Cook over medium heat while stirring constantly until mixture comes to a boil.
  3. 3
     Cool to room temperature.
  4. 4
     Stir in Cool Whip and oranges.
  5. 5
     Chill well.
  6. 6
     NOTE: Even though this recipe is cooked, the vanilla pudding mix is instant.
  7. 7
     It is not a mistake.
  
  sweet potato casserole

Ingredients
5 sweet potatoes 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 cup butter 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/2 cup white sugar 2 tablespoons heavy cream 1/4 cup butter, softened 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.
Bake sweet potatoes 35 minutes in the preheated oven, or until they begin to soften. Cool slightly, peel, and mash.
In a large bowl, mix the mashed sweet potatoes, salt, 1/4 cup butter, eggs, vanilla extract, cinnamon, sugar, and heavy cream. Transfer to the prepared baking dish.
In a medium bowl, combine 1/4 cup butter, flour, brown sugar, and chopped pecans. Mix with a pastry blender or your fingers to the consistency of course meal. Sprinkle over the sweet potato mixture.
Bake 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until topping is crisp and lightly browned.

potato rolls

5 cups all-purpose flour
1 (1/4 ounce) package active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups water (105 to 115 F)
1/2 cup mashed potatoes
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Directions:
1In large bowl combine 2 cups of the flour and the yeast.2In small mixing bowl combine warm water, potatoes, butter, sugar and salt.3Add to dry ingredients in mixing bowl.4Beat with electric mixer for 30 seconds on low, scraping side of bowl.5Beat on high speed for 3 minutes.6Stir in remaining flour with a dough hook (or knead by hand), as needed (with most bread recipes the actual amount of flour required depends on humidity, etc. so add slowly until dough pulls away from sides of pan and forms a ball).7Cover and refrigerate for 2 to 24 hours.8Punch dough down.9Turn out on lightly floured surface.10Cover and let rest for 10 minutes.11Grease 13x9-inch baking pan.12Shape dough into 24 rolls.13I divide by cutting dough piece in half and then each of those pieces in half--continuing until I have 24 pieces.14That helps to get a more uniform size.15Make balls by holding dough in both hands and gently smoothing by pushing the edges towards the back.16Place rolls in prepared pan.17Cover and let rise in a warm place until nearly doubled in size (about 40 minutes).18Bake at 400°F for 16 to 20 minutes or until golden brown.Print This Recipe

pumpkin pie

Ingredients:
Serves: 10-12
Yield:
2 2.02.0Servings Size
pies
Update
pies
Units: US | Metric
1 (29 ounce) can pumpkin (or fresh cooked equivalent)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon salt
4 well beaten eggs
1 cup evaporated milk
1 cup heavy cream
2 unbaked 9-inch pie shells
Directions:
1Combine first 8 ingredients in a large bowl, mixing well.2Combine the evaporated milk and the heavy cream in a small saucepan.3Heat the milks to the scalding point.4Add scalded milks to the other ingredients, mixing well.5Pour equally into the two UNBAKED pie shells.6Bake 350 degrees for about 1 hour.7Pie is done when a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean.8Top with desired topping.

pecan pie

1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups corn syrup (I use 1/2 dark and 1/2 light)
4 eggs
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 cups pecans, coarsely broken
1 unbaked deep dish pie shell
Directions:
1In saucepan boil sugar and corn syrup together for 2 to 3 minutes; set aside to cool slightly.2In large bowl beat eggs lightly and very slowly pour the syrup mixture into the eggs, stirring constantly.3At this point I like to strain the mixture to make sure it's smooth and lump free.4Stir in butter, vanilla, and pecans and pour into crust.5Bake in a 350°F oven for about 45 to 60 minutes or until set.