We love making gingerbread houses for holidays. We like to make haunted ones, Christmas ones, and even Valentines homes. BUT I can’t stand the smell of molasses so I haven’t made them in years. The kids have been asking me to make more, so when I got this recipe from my friend Tauni at It’s a Tradition with NO MOLASSES in it I figured it was a great change to try again! She has an adorable printable for her recipe too.
Gingerbread Cookies (houses)
from Tauni at It’s a Tradition
3/4 C butter softened
3/4 C packed brown sugar
1 (3.4 oz) pkg butterscotch instant pudding
1 egg
2 C flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 Tbls ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
bead butter, sugar, pudding and egg in a large bowl. Slowly mix in remaining ingredients. REfrigerate dough for an hour until firm.
Roll the dough to 1/4 inch thick, cut into shapes. Place 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper or sprayed with Pam. Bake 10-12 mins until lightly browned.
If you click on this picture it will take you to flickr where you can actually get the original size and save it for your own use. I printed out my recipe on card-stock, cut it out, and used a knife to cut all the walls and roof pieces.
I made a quadruple batch and it made 8 houses! We invited my husbands cousins and their kids over to decorate houses with us! It’s so fun to have cousins visiting from out of town during the holidays. My only issue with this recipe is how MUCH it expands. I would have printed off my houses much smaller had I known. But now I do. It’s a GREAT recipe and I plan on using it EVERY time, just with smaller pieces! We were 1 house short in the end and The Naked One didn’t get to decorate. But she had fun eating all the candies!
I use royal icing to put the houses together and to add the decorations. There are quite a few recipes out there, but I like to use meringue powder rather than egg whites, simply for safety. I don’t mind egg whites when I’m cooking, but in something like frosting, that doesn’t get cooked? Just makes me a bit nervous.
Royal icing
makes about 3 cups
3 Tbls Meringue powder
4 Cups powdered sugar
6 Tbls warm water
Beat ingredients until icing forms peaks. I set my bosch mixer at medium and leave it for 10 mins. With a hand mixer go 10 – 12 mins at high speeds.
Fill decorator bags, cut a hole in the tip and let the kids go to town! I glued the 4 walls together and onto a paper plate and let it dry before attaching the roof. It doesn’t take long at all. The kiddo’s had a GREAT time and we will definitely be making some more houses in the near future!
I love decorating gingerbread houses. So much fun!
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Ashlee Reply:
January 10th, 2011 at 12:56 pm
We do too! My favorite is haunted gingerbread houses for halloween, but I think we might just have to do valentines houses too!
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Ashley, I am glad you guys had fun with the gingerbread recipe. This was a case where I had to forgo family tradition in favor of something new…However, I think this one is going to stick.
So, I should have let you know that these cookies grow a bit…next time, leave them in the oven for a bit longer. They get a little crunchy, but they loose the puffiness and work great for gingerbread houses!
BTW, I usually follow you in reader. Glad I clicked through today, your site is looking great!
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Ashlee Reply:
January 10th, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Thanks for sharing the recipe!!! Tons of people have said they taste better than “classic” ones. So huge hit! I did notice on the ones that got cooked a bit longer did lose some of the puffiness, but they were still on the rounded side of things. But with enough royal icing it doesn’t matter a bit, the kids LOVED it!
Thanks about the site, It’s still a work in progress, but it’s coming along!
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