Thursday, December 4, 2008

23 mini gingerbread houses

my husband and i are hosting a christmas party this weekend. this is the 3rd year i've made gingerbread houses for the kids (and some adults who want to participate) to decorate at the party. i made the dough last night and baked for almost 3 hours today, then assembled the houses which took just under an hour. i did make a big mistake this year though...i ran out of white flour making the dough, so when i was rolling out the cookies, all i had left was whole wheat flour to use. i tried to brush off the whole wheat flour (before and after baking) but the houses are still tainted with flour. oh well.
  • 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup molasses
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons warm water
here is the template i made (cardboard covered in plastic wrap). the the front of the house is about an inch shorter than the ones i made last year. and the side wall is more of a square than a rectangle for a shorter house.


a bunch of walls unbaked

a bunch of walls baked

i decided to cut out the door, rather than tracing it on the dough like last time. and i didn't make windows on the side of the house this time to save time.

each stack makes a house

here's an animated gif i made.
it took me 56 minutes to put all the houses together. so here are 56 slides to show my progress.

5 comments:

Mama of 2 Hapas said...

Wow! a lot of work. I like your big bake rack to cool them on....I need a bigger one, or at least another one. I made sugar cookies last night, but will decorate them this afternoon for a party we're attending tonight.

Mama Bear said...

Can't wait for the party Sat night!!

sunshine said...

Aww! The kids and adults will love them!! Looking forward to seeing you later!

Anna Bartell said...

Hey....Love your blog and your mini gingerbread houses. My daughter is obsessed with Christmastime. She turns 5 in August and when I asked her what kind of birthday party she wanted she said Christmas! So that's what we're doing :) I thought a cute activity would be for the kids to decorate gingerbread houses. I was wondering if you had the dimensions of you pattern? I've looked a lot online and I can't find a printable template. Thanks a lot!
Anna

maybe strawberry said...

thanks for visiting my site Anna. What a great idea for a birthday party! i LOVE Christmas too! sorry though, i don't have my template anymore. i just made it from card stock and just made sure the templates fit each other, then baked one set first to make sure they would fit

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails