Gingerbread Houses

I love family traditions!! Each year we have been getting together with some friends and decorating gingerbread houses. They are a bit of work to make, cut out, glue together, etc. But oh so worth it!!
I use my gingerbread men recipe- because it's awesome.





Gingerbread Men
1/4 c. boiling water
1/2 c. butter
1 tsp. Baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
1/2 c. molasses
3 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 egg
1/2 c. sugar
*Red Hots* (for buttons)
Frosting (for gingerbread men- not the houses)
Melt butter in boiling water. Add all the other ingredients. Then chill the dough for 2 hours. Roll out and cut into shapes. Push red hots (buttons) into the men before baking. Bake at 350 degree for 8-10 minutes. Cool and decorate with frosting. Makes 24 cookies.

I had to make 2 double batches for 2 gingerbread houses- My houses were pretty big though.

Make a pattern out of paper- so cut out 4 walls, 2 roof parts, 4 chimney parts, tape it all together to make sure it fits well. Cut or remove the tape and use the paper pieces to cut out all the pieces.
I used Jolly Ranchers for the windows- breaking them to pieces in the food processor. Put the walls on a parchment or wax paper lined baking sheet and pile some broken clear candy pieces in the windows. Bake as directed.

The gingerbread house pieces need to sit out and "cure" for at least a day- I find that several days work best. They need to be hard and stiff.

"Gluing" takes another day or so.

Glue Frosting
3 Egg whites
1 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
3 1/2- 4 c. powdered sugar

Beat egg whites till they are stiff, continue beating and sprinkle in the cream of tartar, then mix in the powdered sugar slowly until it reaches the consistency that you need.

Put the frosting in a piping bag. "Glue" the walls to a foil covered cardboard and to each other. You can see how I did it step-by-step here.

You will need to do the floors/walls first, use jars or glasses to hold them while they dry and then do to roof/chimney after a few hours. After the glue is dry and the house feels sturdy it is ready to decorate! It's all edible... but we've never wanted to eat it, we let it sit out on display for the month of December.





Other Gingerbread we've done:
Gingerbread Hobbit Hole
Pictures of gingerbread men

Clove Orange Ornaments

Have you made these before? I remember seeing them when I was a kid, but we never made them. I decided to try it with Titus and Naomi- it was alot of fun!

Clove Orange Ornaments
Oranges
Whole Cloves
Ribbon
Straight pins



I cut 2 lengths of ribbon, made an "X", placed the orange over it and wrapped the ribbon up around it and stuck a straight pin in to hold the ribbon in place on the bottom of the orange. Then I used a meat thermometer, (because that's the only pointed thing I had!) to poke holes in the orange. The kids pushed the cloves into the holes. I tied a ribbon bow and then cut a large piece of ribbon and looped it for a hanger. criss-crossing all the ribbon/bows on the top I stuck in a couple more straight pins at an angle so it wouldn't pull out just by being hung.

Gingerbread Hobbit Hole

Sorry it's after Christmas... but for Christmas I got a new camera, as my other one went out and it just wouldn't do justice to the Hobbit Hole to do pictures when the camera I was borrowing in between the going out of one and the buying of a new one. I used the same gingerbread recipe I have used before. We cut out the front and doors of gingerbread, cut some "logs" for the sides and used cardboard for the top and back, only because we couldn't agree on a way to bake the gingerbread for it.


I had some extra melted chocolate when I made some chocolate covered nuts for Christmas, so we spread that over the top, back and lawn areas and then covered it with green colored coconut.


We are huge LOTR buffs, if you can't tell... and were quite pleased with the end result, though I think we needed to spend alot more time on it. Just didn't work this year, but there is always next year and it got our creativity going.

Foodie Gift Boxes

It's that time of year again! I actually really enjoy this, I enjoy how pretty the treats look in the gift boxes, and I hope they enjoy getting them as much as I would. My love affair with food. *Grin*

Here's what I put in there this year:

"Cinnabon" Cinnamon Rolls
Gingerbread Men (and fish, holly leaves, presents and Christmas trees)
Crabapple Jelly
Apricot Jam
Zucchini Bread
Artisan Bread
Peppermint Bark
Dark Chocolate covered Almonds and Pecans
This is the first time I've done chocolate covered nuts, I thought they looked so pretty! They in fact did look beautiful when I made them, but I bought some 100% Cocoa chocolate... and I followed her recipe, but even with all that honey they were super dark and one would really need to be a fan of really dark chocolate to like them. I put them in the boxes anyway and also made some with some semi-sweet chocolate chips that I had. They were much more to my tastes. I was a bit disappointed, I thought the honey would make them sweeter, perhaps I shouldn't have gotten 100% cocoa.

All in all, I was very please with everything in the box and thought they looked lovely. What are some things that you give as food gifts each year? Are you famous for something delicious? :-) Do tell!

Homemade Gift Carnival

***Don't forget to add your own gift ideas- leave a comment, or link to your own blogpost!***


I love food gifts.
I love food.
When I love someone, I want to give them food.
I feel loved when I get food.
And a big plus: it doesn't clutter up the house.
(I've been working on keeping things clean/decluttered and have been blogging about it here.)

My friend Cara posted on her blog the other day, about homemade gifts. She linked to a Handmade Gift Carnival at The Nourishing Gourmet. I really enjoyed browsing through the gift ideas and got some great ones I'm going to try this year!

I typically make up some gift boxes, for employers and friends. Here is a post I did when I first started blogging.
I typically make Gingerbread Men (with frosting), Crab Apple Jelly, and some kind of bread. I have used Whole Wheat Bread and Swedish Raisin Rye Bread.

Last year I included Brian's Muesli and some Peanut Butter Granola, along with some coffee that our friend roasts himself (if you ask for his info in a comment I would be happy to pass it on via email!! He's wonderful with it!).

For teachers we've put a couple gingerbread men into Wilton Clear Party Bags.

So... for the first time ever I am branching out and doing a carnival of my own.
What do you do for homemade gifts and food gifts? Please blog about it and put your link here using Mister Linky:

Gift Boxes

Well, I finished the boxes for Brian's bosses-- yea!! I gave them: pancake mix, baked oatmeal mix, whole wheat bread, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, gingerbread men, crab apple jelly and Mexican wedding cakes (recipe below).

And then, as tradition would have it, we had to make some comic relief gingerbread men for a few friends that appreciate our sense of humor.

Mexican Wedding Cakes

1 c. butter, softened

1/2 c. powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

2 1/4 c. flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 c. finely chopped pecans

Mix:

Butter, sugar and vanilla. Work in flour, salt and nuts. Form into 1" balls, bake at 400 degrees on ungreased baking sheet. 10-12 min, until set, not brown. While warm roll in powdered sugar, cool, then roll in powdered sugar again.

Gingerbread houses

This week we made gingerbread houses.

A few years ago I would take the boys to a church that hosted a Gingerbread house decorating party. A gal had them made and supplied all the frosting and candy. It was so much fun and now we moved to another state and I believe she stopped doing it after having a couple kids-- I can't imagine the work! She must have made at least 20 houses each year.

I used this site as a guide.

I used my own gingerbread recipe- which makes wonderful gingerbread men.
I did use their recipe for the glue type frosting- it worked very well.

Here is a whole album on our gingerbread houses.

I had to make the dough one day, then let it set out all night to dry. Though, next time I will let it set for at least 24 hours, as there was some pulling away from the glue after they were built. The next day I glued them all together and then let them set for about 24 hours-- it was actually longer because I glued them on Friday and we decorated them on Monday.

Gingerbread Men
1/4 c. boiling water
1/2 c. butter
1 tsp. Baking soda
1 tso. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
1/2 c baking molasses
3 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 egg
1/2 c brown sugar
Melt butter in boiling water. Add all the other ingredients. Then chill the dough for 2 hours. Roll out and cut into shapes. Push red hots (buttons) into the men before baking. Bake at 350 degree for 8-10 minutes. Cool and decorate with frosting. Makes 24 cookies.

I had to make 2 double batches for 2 gingerbread houses- My houses were pretty big though. I used 8 1/2 x 11 paper and so the walls were 8 inches long. I probably could have gotten 3 houses out of it, if I had made them smaller. We'll have to see how the hold up over the next month- if they start falling apart I will make smaller ones next year.
I did have enough dough left over to make about 12 good sized cookies, which we enjoyed as well.

Credit for this recipe goes to my friend Sarah- who got it from one of her friends. :-)