Baking Gingerbread Houses from Scratch
Every year my daughter and I decorate gingerbread houses. We’ve been doing this since she was five and it’s become a really fun tradition over the years. Most years we use a gingerbread kit. To date my favorite one came from Sprout’s which you can see in this previous post where we also mad our own wrapping paper for the season. This year I went ahead and braved doing one from scratch. Although it ended up being a little wompy the memories of making it will forever reside in my heart. Sometimes it’s not about being perfect it’s about the process.
First things first, you’ll want to gather supplies. I used this top rated recipe and I highly recommend it! I cut the pieces out by hand and recommend to use a gingerbread house template to trace. You can print a template out and trace it onto cardboard. Looking back this would have helped overall however I didn’t and… well… you live you learn. Use a template! You’ll also want to make sure you have everything for the icing recipe and also decorations. We used gum drops, colorful hard candies, peppermints, cherry gum balls and gummy bears. All of our candies were bought at the dollar store which made it a pretty inexpensive project.
Supply List
Baking Sheet
Cooling Rack
Measuring Cups
Measuring Spoons
Oven Mitts
Apron
Platters
Gingerbread house ingredients
Icing ingredients
Icing decorating tips and bags
Candy to decorate
Cookie cutters
I baked the pieces over the weekend and let them cool overnight. The following day I whipped up icing. You’ll want to do this immediately before you decorate so the icing doesn’t dry out. I really loved this recipe because it held the pieces together firmly and the candy was easy to adhere. When we were ready to decorate, we put each gingerbread house on their own platter. Then, we assembled the gingerbread pieces taking for it to set for about 30 minutes before adding candy. Once the house was sturdy, we added the candy decorations!
About this time of year Texas has enough cool days to actually wear thermal shirts. Although these are usually reserved for layering underneath sweaters in cooler climates, they are perfect to wear alone on chilly days. I love the red and white candy cane stripe print on this top. I also have a fair isle print that I love pulling out for winter. I’ve rounded up a few below since they make perfect loungewear! I paired one with comfy white jeans for a weekend look around the house!
