The Art.
Merry Christmas, everybody! One of my favorite ways to celebrate the season is to make beautiful gingerbread houses with my family. It's a great opportunity to do something creative to decorate your home...and then eat it. It's also an activity that everyone can enjoy. My husband even joined in this year and make a garage full of cookie sports cars. As you can see, my house is more traditional and uses primarily piped icing technique instead of candy decorations. But, if peppermints and jelly beans are your thing, go ahead and eat your heart out. Two elements that I incorporated this year to take my gingerbread house to the next level were windows made of gelatin sheets, and lighting up the interior with a battery-operated LED light for a warm glow. Putting Christmas trees inside the house also gave the interior a nice three-dimensional effect. There are many directions you can take when decorating your gingerbread house, so I encourage everyone to get creative and have fun!
The Science.
The best way to ensure you have a beautiful gingerbread house is to break out a skill I haven't used since high school: geometry. I know, try not to panic. As long as you have a pad of graph paper and follow these basic rules, you will be fine. You will use the graph paper to cut out stencils to trace your gingerbread pieces. First, make sure the vertical walls of your house are all the same height. You can use the same stencil for the front and back, and then another for both sides of your house. If you're making a traditional four-sided house with a gabled roof, then you need to make sure your rectangular roof pieces are at least 1/2 inch longer on each side than you think they should be. This is because the seams between the supporting walls will take up about 1/4 inch, and the same goes for the seam at the top of the roof. If you are planning on filling your house with elements (like my LED light and trees), it helps to make a large hole on the back that you can fit your hand inside.
The Recipe.
For this gingerbread house, I used my Gingerbread Cookie recipe found here. One batch of dough is enough for two houses approximately 8 inches high. You will also need a batch of royal icing, recipe found here. The icing you use to glue your house together should be about the consistency of toothpaste, so keep adding powdered sugar until it's the correct consistency.
If you are using gelatin sheets for windows, be sure to glue them on before you assemble the walls. I find the best way to assemble the house is to fill a piping bag with the icing and pipe it onto the gingerbread with a wide round tip, then hold the pieces together for about 1 minute until they are set. Now that the house is constructed, you're ready for the fun part!
This house has many little details that add dimension. I made evergreen ivy trailing up the walls with royal icing that I dyed green and piped with a small leaf tip. I added icicles along the gables using a small round tip, and made the windows look frosty by filling the windowsills with white icing and adding sparkle sugar.
The Christmas trees were made by covering sugar cones with green icing using a star tip and finishing with Wilton Rainbow Star Medley sprinkles. Finally, a bright red door with a crumbled Oreo path completed the house.
We had a lot of fun making our houses, and I hope you will, too! They look great displayed on the table under a glass cake dome, but they also taste great if you decide to gobble them up. Either way, have a happy holiday!
