Getting Ready for the Holidays - A Gingerbread House Primer, Part One

Christmas 2009 Gingerbread House

Getting ready for the holidays for me always means GINGERBREAD HOUSES!! I love making gingerbread houses and look forward to it every year. I have made over 400 houses in my life time. I even taught a PastryScoop seminar last year on making them, so when I was racking my brain about what to write about next on my blog, I thought about doing a series on making a gingerbread house. I hope you enjoy and try one yourself - Have Fun!

Getting Started

First thing to decide is the design. I decided on a basic A frame house. There are lots of books with templates already made up for more elaborate designs. The Joy of Cooking has a simple template which is great for a first gingerbread house. The next step is to create your templates and cut them out of cardboard.




Something that you can do ahead of time, weeks or even months before is to make some of the decorations. One of my favorite things to do it to make Christmas trees and shrubs out of molded sugar and royal icing. I use piping tips to create the shapes.


To make the molding sugar just take one pound of granulated sugar and stir in one ounce of cold water. The sugar will be like wet sand. Pack it into the mold and tap out. Let dry for 24 hours before decorating with royal icing.



Pipe green royal icing made from meringue powder (follow royal icing recipe on packaging for meringue powder) with a small star tip in circles around the base of the sugar mold. Continue piping circles up to the top and completely cover mold to create the appearance of a tree or shrub.



Lots of Christmas trees and shrubs. I'll be making several gingerbread houses this year. You'll need only one or two trees and about 20 shrubs.

This is just to get you started. Coming up next; cutting out the shapes and assembly. If you have any questions, leave me a comment and I'll answer or send me an email: tlovesbug@hotmail.com.