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Building the Perfect Gingerbread House

If you’re like me, then you love the holiday season and can’t wait to start baking, cooking, and (naturally) sampling! And what better way than with ginger bread? The chewy, spicy treat has been around for centuries, and now is associated with the winter holidays. In England, unmarried women actually used to eat ginger bread “husbands” for luck in finding a mate.

One of my favorite traditions is baking those over-the-top ginger bread houses. Ginger bread houses seem to daunt even the most skilled bakers, but they’re well worth the work (and nothing’s more fun to decorate). First, you need to find a great recipe to make a sumptious gingerbread house. Check out this recipeto get started.

To make something artistic and not just tasty, here are some tips on making the perfect ginger bread house from About.com:

-Maximum thickness for dough should be 3/8-inch. For houses larger than 6 inches square, use 1/4-inch thickness and for smaller houses, use 1/8-inch. Weight-bearing walls should be just slightly thicker

-Cut the basic structure templates for your house from posterboard and test first by taping the pieces together. If it will stand as made out of posterboard, then most likely it will be structurally safe for your gingerbread house

-You can use dough scraps to roll out added decorative cut-outs to be applied with icing glue. These cutouts can be impressed with designs before baking.

-Don't limit yourself to a plain box house. You can make virtually any shape, from igloo to Victorian to farmhouse. Or, use a loaf mold in the shape of a house to eliminate the construction steps.

Posted Dec 7, 2007 by themagster | 2 Comments | Share It

Filed under: recipes holidays