We began making gingerbread houses when my two oldest were 2 & 3 years old. It has become a tradition we all look forward to every year. It is always a blast! And now 13 years later it is still as fun as can be.
This year we’ve decided we wanted to create a village. Several of the kids made houses, one made a “mansion,” a couple others made some shops and stores (a candy store and The Pink Pig Bookstore), one made a church, and I made the Salt Lake Temple.
We use a basic template I created years ago. The house is just big enough to decorate with plenty of candy but not so big I have gingerbread dough coming out of my ears and I’m baking all day. . . well as much as baking ten gingerbread houses takes. 🙂
Gingerbread House Template (small) pdf
Every child gets their own house to decorate. Nobody has to share! That does make for a lot of baking and candy but ….it’s tradition!
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| Hershey had help from Brownie. Can you tell she liked to taste the candy before it got put on the house? |
Here’s my favorite gingerbread cookie recipe. I cut it out of a Martha Stewart magazine years and years ago. Each recipe of dough will make about 4-5 houses. I make the dough, cut out and bake the pieces the day before our decorating day, and let them sit out overnight to harden up. Each child gets their own to decorate. I give them each their own small ziploc sandwich bag with a corner snipped off filled with royal icing and let them have at it.
Gingerbread Cookies
1 cup margarine, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup molasses
5 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
Cream together margarine and sugar. Add molasses and mix well. Sift together dry ingredients. With mixer on low speed slowly add dry ingredients and 1/2 cup water to molasses mixture. Mix until smooth. Divide dough into two equal pieces. Flatten each piece into a rectangle. wrap with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 1 hour. On floured surface roll out dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut with cookie cutters or use template to make gingerbread house pieces. Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes. Transfer to wire rack to cool. Makes 4 dozen cookies or 4 gingerbread houses.
Royal Icing
3 TBSP. meringue powder*
4 cups confectioner’s sugar
7 TBSP. water
Beat with electric mixer for 7 minutes or until stiff peaks form. If icing is too thick add 1 tsp. of water at a time until you get better consistency. I usually end up making three batches of this so there is enough for everyone. (We do have nine children after all).
* I buy the Wilton’s Meringue Powder that comes in a can in the cake decorating aisle.
Tips:
♦ I cut up old boxes and cover the pieces with foil to put our houses on.
♦ Assemble the house first and let set for about 15 minutes so the icing has time to harden a little before decorating your house.
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| The church |
♦ Use your imagination to find candies, cookies, cereal, and other edible goodies for your house. We use sugar cones turned upside down for trees, shredded wheat for snowy rooftops, tootsie rolls for a pile of logs outside the house, swirled chocolate chips, gumdrops, red hots, M&M’s, candy canes, wafer cookies, the possibilities are endless.
♦ Don’t stress! Letting each child have thier own to decorate however they want is part of the fun. I love seeing the uniqueness of each house each year. It does get messy but that’s okay!
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| The mansion |
♦ Make extra house pieces to use in case someone does happen to break one of theirs. Honestly we’ve only ever had three pieces break in the 10 years we’ve been doing this.
♦ Invite friends over for a grand party! One of my daughter’s birthday is December 18. For her eighth birthday we had 12 kids gathered round the table making their own gingerbread houses. It was so much fun!
This temple was really fun to do! I just created an outline of the ends with the spires on paper. I cut around that template using a butter knife. The side pieces were just rectangles. I cut the tops using the stem end of a leaf cookie cutter to create the square cut-outs.
I transferred the pieces to foil lined baking sheets and cut out the windows. I used an apple corer to cut out the circles on the side pieces and a butter knife to cut out the long curved windows on the end pieces.
Then I sprinkled broken pieces of blue and purple jolly ranchers (any hard candy can be used). To break the candy place in a ziploc bag and pound away with a hammer or rolling pin. I baked the gingerbread as usual then let it cool completely on the pan before removing.
I softened starburst candy in the microwave for about 7 seconds to mold the Angel Moroni on top. It looks more like a honking duck than an angel blowing a trumpet!
Also don’t be surprised if you find a scene similar to this after making your gingerbread houses. That’s the fun of it!
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| Fudge about 5 years ago |
Slice of Heaven also has several free printable gingerbread house, church and elf house patterns to try.
Have fun, make a memory, and enjoy!
© 2007-2011 Chocolate on my Cranium, LLC all rights reserved
Love the temple! Love it!
for our tradition growing up, we would eat it new years eve while mom and dad were out for the night at the church dance.
You temple is really neat! I love that tradition too. Having a December birthday myself, I recall doing gingerbread houses as sort of a part thing a few times. My mom helped enough Kindergarten classes over the years with their gingerbread houses that she picked up a few tips and ideas. She makes the houses out of…cardboard! She has a pattern and quickly cuts out the pieces with a their band saw and then hot glues them together on a sturdy paper plate. They NEVER break or fall apart that way. No, they aren’t edible, but we found that most kids just wanted to eat the candy off of it and not the house.
I’ve never made one with real gingerbread. I’ve never even MADE gingerbread! Does it get hard and yucky so nobody wants to eat it after a few days? I really need to make gingerbread one of these days.
Love this, the village is a fabulous idea! I have added this to my christmas traditions link list as I know others will love it too
http://www.ourworldwideclassroom.blogspot.com/2011/11/christmas-fun-2011-week-1-its-craft.html
We did this for nearly 30 years with graham crackers. Memories. Thanks…
That temple is fantastic! I love how cool that is!
The village is a great idea for a big family! If I weren’t off sugar, I’d totally do this!
The temple is absolutely beautiful, by the way. Nice work! 🙂
Hugs,
Rachel
It was hard to see the stained glass on your original picture, so I’m glad you added others! Very neat touch!
This past Sunday afternoon was our family’s Gingerbread House Extravaganza. We started it about four years ago. The first year, I made the houses, now I buy the kits (lazy me). We have five or so families join us, with about 15 or so children, ages 2 through 15. The older ones get put in charge of a house with a group of younger ones to help. Each house has a theme (usually) and all components must be candy. We have surf boards, hammocks, campfires, log cabins, duck ponds, and even a tar pit sucking in a gingerbread man. It’s fun and loud and messy – and I love every minute. Great memories.
Wow, that’s an amazing undertaking! Well done to all of you, it looks great.
these are amazing. I dont have as much luck as you. I think it is the humidity here. Gingerbread goes soft within days, so we cant keep them around to look at them, and try to eat them within four days of making… not to mention all the bugs and ants that are around in summer.
You are truly amazing. I made three gingerbread houses this year and that was using KITS!!
and either ziplock bags arent as good here or i make my icing too strong, because before I bought a piping bag I always used ziplock bags but I would pop them every time. I would go through 5 or more bags to make just one house!
anyways I jealous and this is just a terrific tradition. we’ve made ours for about the fourth year now.. maybe when I have teenagers to help it will be easier 🙂
Looks like tons of fun! Have a Merry Christmas!
p.s. the word verification I have to type is “sweetsm”. So ironic that it has the word sweets in it!
I love the village, and the temple is beautiful! What a great tradition.
We did this for years with graham crackers. I had six children, and my SIL had seven. I would make all the frosting, and gather everything up to take to her house (she had a nice, long, table that would accommodate everyone). It was a wonderful time to look forward to every year, and a great way for the cousins to get together and have fun at Christmas. The men would always be really competitive about it – see how tall and intricate they could make a house without it collapsing – interior stairways, chimneys, lots of rooms inside, different kinds of roofs. The male teenagers caught the bug pretty quickly and joined in. I never made a house – just helped, and documented every step with the camera. Maybe someday I will have grandchildren to continue this tradition.
They all look amazing! We didn’t make our gingerbread houses this year…Maybe we will have a gingerbread house building day in the Spring just for the fun of it! I better bookmark this post because I am sure your recipe is delicious and those look like sturdy houses too. Have a wonderful Christmas!
I love this lol.
Satisfied my curiosity.
I wish I grew up with cool stuff like this.
LOVE the temple! Very cool. I have such little patience for the chaos of making gingerbread houses from a kit, I can’t imagine making it all from scratch!
Oh my gosh! That Temple is AMAZING. Your gingerbread skills are my new goal in life;) Cute village!