Gingerbread House and Cookies

Gingerbread Men

The Christmas tree has been stored away, the Christmas stockings no longer hang on the staircase and the holiday cards are now in a shoebox. Being that it is January 2nd, the signs of the holidays are appropriately no longer visible. But, here I am blogging about Gingerbread. Most of you would consider my post very late, but I like to think of it as VERY early for 2012. Hey, better late than never! I made 2 small gingerbread houses, one for each of my children. The rest of the dough was used to make gingerbread cookies. The baked cookies need a lot of sweetened icing to make them tasty. The dough is not very sweet so pile on an overabundance of royal icing. The gingerbread men in my pictures do not have enough icing. I also like to leave them slightly underbaked so they stay tender.

When it comes to decorating the gingerbread houses with candy, I let the kids do as they wish.  I am thinking next Christmas I will make a separate one for myself so I can take part in the fun.

Gingerbread Trees

Candy

Small Gingerbread House Template

Baked Gingerbread - enough for 2 small houses

Gingerbread Houses "glued" together with Caramelized Sugar

Gingerbread Dough
Recipe Adapted from Epicurious.com
Yield: One large Gingerbread House or 4-5 small houses

6 3/4 cups all purpose flour
4 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 1/2 cups butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
3/4 cup robust (dark) molasses

Sift flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and cardamom into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Add sugar and beat to blend. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Add molasses and beat on high speed until well blended. Add dry ingredients in 4 additions, beating at low speed until dough forms. Divide dough into 6 equal pieces. Flatten each piece into rectangle. Wrap each in plastic and refrigerate until firm enough to roll, at least 6 hours. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Keep refrigerated.)

Gingerbread House templates can be found at
JustGingerBread.com

Roll out dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper until about 1/8".   Place the templates on the dough and cut around template with pizza cutter or knife.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 9 minutes. Work quickly but carefully when assembling the cooled gingerbread together with the caramelized sugar.

Caramelized Sugar
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water

Cook until golden brown. Only a half recipe is needed if making 2 small houses.


Icing
I shy away from raw egg whites so I mix small amounts of heavy cream with powdered sugar to create the icing.
Keep the consistency thick so it acts as a good glue.

Gingerbread House 1

Gingerbread House 2