One of our favorite holiday traditions is decorating gingerbread houses with friends and family! Every year we get together and make these fun houses, some years we’ve done trains, trees, and oversized gingerbread men (better for younger kids). But no matter what style we’re making, this tradition is one of our favorites and we look forward to it every year and so I wanted to share it with you too!
–>> Download my Gingerbread House Recipe PDF here! <<–
Gingerbread House Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 3/4 cup molasses
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 3/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Decoration supply ideas: Peppermint candies, hard ball candy, gum drops, M&Ms, candy canes, chocolate rice Chex (roof), licorice, and any other dandy you can think of! We like to save our leftover Halloween candy (hard candy only) for decorating!
Directions:
- In a large bowl, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in egg and molasses. Combine the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt. Gradually add dry mixture to creamed mixture and mix well. Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight or until easy to handle. (I make the dough two days before we plan to do houses.)
- On a lightly floured surface, roll dough to about 1/4-in. thickness. Cut pieces using gingerbread house template below. Place 1 in. apart on un-greased baking sheets.
- Bake at 350° for 8-10 minutes or until edges are firm. Remove to wire racks to cool.
- Decorate as desired! See Royal Icing recipe below
Optional: Don’t feel like making houses? Use festive cookie cutters instead, this recipe yields approx. 5 dozen cookies.
Royal Icing Recipe:
- 3 Tbsp. Wilton Meringue Powder
- 4 C. confectioners’ sugar
- Approx. 5 Tbsp. warm water (Optional: substitute one Tbsp. water with clear vanilla extract)
Directions:
Beat all ingredients until mixture forms stiff peaks. Feel free to separate it into bowls and add food coloring as desired or leave it white like snow!
–>> Download my Gingerbread House Recipe PDF here! <<–
I enjoyed this post very much! Love the before and after and those baskets are darling! Good job!Locksmith Fayetteville NC
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