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.

here is the recipe i used from allrecipes.com

• 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.