Gingerbread

Gingerbread

What smells more like Christmas than gingerbread men baking in the oven?

The tradition of baking a Gingerbread house began in Germany. After the Grimm brothers published their famous story of Hansel and Gretel, the children where left to starve in the forest, who came upon a house made of bread and sugar decorations.
Early settlers from Northern Europe brought the gingerbread tradition to the North America.

Make Your Own Gingerbread House

There are hundreds of Gingerbread recipes online that you can make to create a very tasty, edible house. Small children have a lot of fun making their own Gingerbread House and Man


The Pattern
Cut from paper the following:
Roof: 2 rectangles, 7 inches by 11 inches Side walls: 2 rectangles, 5"x8"Front and Back: base 5", total height 9".
Cut door from front.
/\ /\ -
/ \ / \ 4 inches
/ \ / \ _

_ 5 inches

____ ______ _

--5"-- --5"--
Chimney: (optional) 1" wide. _ _ _ _

_
/ \
_ / \
Front Back Side1 Side2
2.5" tall 1.5" tall

Attach the sides with icing sugar or frosting, follow with the roof.
You can pipe icing into the cracks with a cake decorator or with a plastic bag filled with icing. Use your imagination to create windows and doors with different shaped and colored candies.
base that looks like snow.

Enjoy and have fun!

A Christmas classic
Ingredients
1 stick butter - softened (1 stick of butter = 1/2 cup or 1/4 pound.)
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup molasses
1 large egg yolk
2 cups all purpose flour
candies and colored frosting for decorating

Instructions:
Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl mix until creamy and smooth. Beat in ginger, cinnamon, baking powder, allspice and baking soda until blended. Beat in molasses and yolk.
On low speed, beat in flour. Divide dough in half, wrap and chill until firm.

Heat oven to 350F.
Roll half the dough at a time on a well floured surface to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut with floured cookie cutters.
Transfer with spatula to ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 8-10 minutes until lightly browned.

For those who have no time to bake, there are wonderful pre-made Gingerbread Houses, Trains and People.

All you do is decorate them:)