Yummy Gingerbread Men and Failed Gingerbread Houses

This was our second year with an unintentionally Florida themes gingerbread house. The first year I didn’t use a template, because it’s just a house right? Stick 6 squares together and that’s that. You have yourself a gingerbread house. It’s gotta be easy because on the television children do it.

So. Yeah. Not so much.

Not a single wall stood. It was a royal icing covered mess. We said that Hurricane Wilma hit the house.

This year I followed a lovely template from Martha Stewart. I printed it out. I followed the lines with a pizza cutter. It looked gorgeous in my cookie pan. After baking, we begin to put it together and all four walls stand! But there was a problem. Every time we put the roof on it fell apart. Once, we put one side of the roof on, but never both sides. This time it was Hurricane Katrina, because when it passed though Florida it mostly only damaged people’s roofs.

How do you guys get your gingerbread houses so perfect? I always seem to cause some distortion that leads to disaster!

Anyway, the gingerbread was still delicious, even if it couldn’t stand up architecturally.

My recipe was inspired by So Good and Tasty’s cookies.

Oven Temp: 350 degrees
Yield: About 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients

• 4 cups flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 4 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons cardamom
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 3/4 cup butter
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2/3 cup blackstrap molasses

Directions

1. Mix flour, baking soda, cocoa, ginger, clove, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, cardamom, and pepper in one bowl
2. In another bowl, cream butter and sugar until fluffy.
3. Add eggs one at a time and cream after each.
4. Add molasses and mix until completely distributed.
5. Add dry mixture to wet mixture a bit at a time. Mix until combined, careful not to over mix.
6. Roll dough into a ball and let cool in the fridge 2 hours, but preferably overnight.
7. Remove chilled dough and divide into two pieces.
8. Roll out dough as in Sugar Cookie recipe , to 1/8th inch thickness.
9. Cook 10-12 minutes.
10. Decorate with powdered sugar or Royal Icing.

 

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