Yesterday our big project was making our annual Christmas gingerbread house!  We have a cutter kit like this one, which works well for cutting out the basic pieces… but you could let your imagination run wild and build one without a kit!  You can also download a template to use for your pieces here.

Here are the recipes we use – I find that they work very well.

FYI… We also use this recipe to make gingerbread ornaments:

5 cups flour
1 cup sugar
3 tsp ginger
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
1 cup shortening (I used butter this time because I was out of shortening… worked fine!)
1 cup molasses (I have also used 1/2 cup of light corn syrup and 1/2 cup molasses when I was low on molasses)

Melt shortening in saucepan. Add sugar and molasses and mix well. Cook until sugar is fully dissolved. Transfer into bowl of a stand mixer. [Obviously this is hot and not a job for kids!!]

Sift flour, baking soda, nutmeg, salt, and ginger in mixing bowl.  Gradually stir dry ingredients into the shortening mixture.

Divide into three equal parts and place on three different ungreased baking sheets.  Roll into 1/4″ thick rectangles.  [This dough is almost like a candy because you cook the sugar/shortening mixture.  If you find that it has cooled and gotten too thick and hard to roll, just put it in your oven on "warm" and it will soften again.]

2 front/back pieces
2 ends
2 roof pieces
4 chimney pieces
Any trees/ gingerbread boys, etc that you want to use for decoration.

Peel away the excess dough and leave the cut pieces where they were on your baking sheet.

Bake at 375 for 13-15 minutes until they are lightly browned. In the meantime, your kids can play with the extra dough which is the consistency of playdough.  Unfortunately, it will look like this on your kitchen counter:

Wow, does that look gross.

After you remove the pieces from the oven, it’s a good idea to take a ruler or other straightedge and trim up the bottoms and sides of your pieces to make sure they are square.  If they get misshapen at all it will make assembling your house a bit frustrating, to say the least!!

I usually end up making four separate batches of this icing. It gets hard rather quickly, so if you’re not using it right away put some plastic wrap right against the surface of the icing in your bowl.

1 large egg white
1 2/3 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Beat the egg white until foamy.  Gradually add in sugar and cream of tartar until smooth and stiff.  You want this icing to be very thick.

I usually put the icing in a quart size freezer bag and snip the corner to pipe.

For more Christmas inspiration, visit Simply Vintagegirl’s Homemade Christmas!