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For the second year in a row Annabelle and I made a gingerbread house. Every year I’d like to think I get a little bit better. I learn more about what works well, and what doesn’t work. I thought I’d share with you how easy it is to do.
First things first, you have to make the gingerbread. I used the recipe my mom and I always used to use, and you know what, now I can’t find it! As soon as I can find it, I’ll post the recipe, until then I’m sure any gingerbread cookie recipe would do.
While the dough is chilling, you need to build the base for your house. You will be using royal icing to “glue” your pieced to the base. I just cut up a box to do this, and taped the bejezus out of it.
After the dough has chilled it’s time to roll it out. I rolled mine out to an eight of an inch. I use these awesome rubber bands that go on the end of your rolling pin to help roll dough to an even thickness. I use these all the time, and love them. If you make a lot of rolled cookies, I highly recommend them.
Use your box to create templates to cut out the sides and roof of your house. Remember you need two roofs and four sides. Two of those sides will be rectangles, and two will be pentagon shaped (for the front and back of the house).
Bake them for however long the recipe says. I added a little extra time since I wasn’t making cookies, and the pieces were bigger. I suggest using parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Since the pieces are big, they can break a lot easier if the stick.
After the pieces have cooled completely, you are ready to assemble! Make some royal icing. I use this recipe. Depending on the size of your house, you can cut the recipe in half. Spread the icing all over the side of your base.
“Glue” your side down.
After, do the opposite side, then let the house sit for about 20-30 minutes for the icing to harden a bit. If you don’t, then the pieces are likely to slide down. Continue to glue all the sides on. If you notice I have royal icing falling down the sides of my house. I think it looks like snow/icicles, so I just went with it.
Now, you can see that there are still a ton of cracks. To fill those in (and to put the rest of our goodies on) I made up some buttercream frosting. I filled a piping bag, and put a star tip on it to pipe frosting into the cracks.
Last up is the fun stuff, decorating the house! Use buttercream frosting and put candy wherever you desire!
Full disclosure. I did the roof. After that, I just let Annabelle at it. I put all the candy out and let her do her thing.
She had so much fun! I don’t know if more candy ended up on the house or in her belly, but she had so much fun.
In the end, we had lots of fun!