Gingerbread Houses – An Annual Tradition – Guest Post by Montserrat

I am excited to have Montserrat AKA Cocoa, from Chocolate on my Cranium be a guest writer today!  I found her blog a couple of years ago when I started homeschooling and I was so impressed!  My first thought after reading it was, “Wow, if she can do it, so can I”  She is a mother of 9, and she cooks, sews, runs a family farm, blogs, you name it she does it!  She is a great example to me and I am so excited to have her guest blogging for me!  Now onto one of her wonderful family traditions!
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I 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.

I made up a basic template 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.
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!

What our table usually looks like before we begin the decorating. This was from 5 years ago. My how my kids have grown!

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.

♦ 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 their 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!
♦ 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!

I made up the template I used for my house two years ago. I was going to crush up hard yellow candy (jolly ranchers) and sprinkle it in the windows to bake when I cut out the front of the house but ran out of candy. That would have been a neat stained glass effect. If you do that make sure to bake your dough on a foil lined baking sheet for easier removal of the house piece off the pan.

This year we’ve decided we want to create a village. Several of the kids will make houses, a couple will make shops or stores, one wants to make a church, another a temple. Now I need to figure out an area big enough to display it!

Also don’t be surprised if you find a scene similar to this after making your gingerbread houses. That’s the fun of it!
Slice of Heaven also has several free printable gingerbread house, church and elf house patterns to try.

Have fun, make a memory, and enjoy!

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Wow, That looks like so much fun and so much candy!  My kids would LOVE it!  Next year I am going to attempt this for sure!   It might be my only project but I would really like to do this!

Don’t forget to enter the Giveaway for Chrismtas With the Prophets here and come back tomorrow to enter to win a really cute headband!!