Gingerbread House . . . a family affair!

I think this might become a new family tradition: building a gingerbread house for Christmas. It was Ethan's idea. He is our aspiring chef, and he decided he'd like to make one like he did in school. If I had been paying attention, I would have realized he was talking 'gingerbread' houses out of graham cracker, but my mind went immediately to the grand houses I've seen on TV.

I found a great recipe for the gingerbread dough that worked absolutely beautifully for making the pieces parts of the house. I decided to create my own template for the house, and this recipe made just enough dough for our house, with a little left for a santa and sleigh and reindeer and even a couple of Christmas trees. If you aren't into creating your own design, here is a great site for printable gingerbread house templates.

Here is Chef Ethan with our first dough roll out. This dough is VERY stiff. You have to chill it (at least two hours), but when you take it out of the fridge, you'll want to let it set at room temperature for 10 minutes before trying to roll it. Great work out :)

This dough does not puff or rise (there is only a teaspoon of levening in it). So you can crowd the pieces. However, you do want to bake the larger pieces seperate from the smaller pieces, as the cooking time varies.





The larger pieces take about 15 minutes to bake. You'll want a big spatula to handle them. You need to get them off the pan while hot and still flexible. Once the cool, they are VERY rigid. I recommend cutting out windows, etc. before baking, but you can do it while the cookies are still hot, out of the oven.

Here Ethan is working on the royal icing (the recipe is included here). This is the mortar that holds your house together, and it is still stuff. If you have a pipetting bag, you can use it, if not, we just put it in a gallon freezer bag and cut off a tiny corner to pipette out of. When we weren't using the icing, we wrapped the cut corner in a damp paper towel to keep the icing from setting up.

Here is Chef Ethan with the base of our house. Even with two hands, we found the canned food helpful for holding up the sides while the icing set. Once it sets, it's amazing how sturdy the house is!





Chef Ethan wanted to put a Christmas tree inside the house. Here is a cut out (of spare gingerbread dough) that I iced with royal icing and dipped in green sanding sugar. For the star, I added a little royal icing, and dipped in cold draeggers. Turnged out pretty cool. Next year, we'll going to try making stained glass windows and lighting the house from the inside (for Dad to figure out ;).



Here, we have the main structure built, and started adding embellishments. For the porch pillars we used stacked marshmallows, and the bushes are coconut macarooms. What you decorate with is entirely up to you. The kids and I had a great time checking out several sites online that had pics of other people's gingerbread houses. Some great and ingenious ideas out there to try!

Here, Chef Ethan adds M&M lights to the roof line, while brother Bennett hams it up for the camera. We also afixed a star, decorated with gold draeggers, to the front of the house, added pink non-perilles to the porch roof, along with coconut snow. Over each window we afixed a star anise for decoration.

Here, all four boys watch as Mom (me) tries to get Santa's sleigh and reindeer to stick to the roof. It turned out cute, but it was kind of a pain to get them to stay. We even have a Santa going down the chimney!

We created a stepping stone walk of sugar-coated cookies, and Zana lines it with gumdrop lights. In the foreground, Ethan is placing the shutters as he gets them decorated. We then afixed these to the house.

Here's a wide shot of the house, with Zana working on creating a sledding figure. The kids had more fun decorating the yard then anything else. Caleb created a melting snowman out of puffed marshmallows, as well as a snow fort out of candy-coated almonds. Quin created a couple of little creatures, and a tiny flower garden for along the walk.

One thing I would recommend when working with kids on this project, is have them help a couple at a time. When all five kids were crowded around the project wanting to do things, it got a little hectic, and things tended to get knocked over and broken. one or two helpers is manageable, more than that is chaos!

Here is a view of the back of the house. We afixed a decorated wreath to the house. I would still call this a work-in-progress. I had to stop for the evening and really, the decorations in place needed some time to solidify. We'll have to do another batch of royal icing to finish . . . tomorrow.

Here's a close up of Santa's sleigh and reindeer, with Santa himself poking his head out of the chimney. We used butterscotch candies to shingle the roof. I think we will likely do another batch or two of royal icing to add snow to the roofs, and maybe even some icicles . . . it's so much fun to decorate the house!

Here's a shot from above the house looking down in the yard. You can see a couple of Quin's creatures and his flower garden, as well as Caleb's snow fort, and our 3-D Christmas tree. The kids are having a wonderful time coming up with ideas for the yard!

Like I said, it's a work-in-progress, but it has been so much fun creating this with the kids. I strongly recommend this project. Even my 14-year-old son, Bennett, the aspiring architect has gotten into the fun, and informs me that next year, he gets to do the design.

This is definitely a new family tradition!

Do you have any family projects that you do during the holidays? Please share!